March to keep fear alive

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
March to Keep Fear Alive
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

I would have included this clip in my previous post, but two of these video clips in the same post seems to cause problems here. Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive" is the same event as Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity," of course. It's just his shtick to be more Fox News than Fox.

Saturday, October 30th, in Washington, DC - I wish I could go. It sounds like lots of fun.

Rally to restore sanity

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rally to Restore Sanity
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Will this restore sanity in America? Probably not, but it's a valiant attempt.

Will I, at least, take it down a notch here? No. But then, I've never called anyone Hitler. And I've certainly never bought into loony left-wing conspiracy theories, no more than those of the right. I see a much bigger danger to our country on the right, but that doesn't mean that the left doesn't have its own crazies. (But the extremist right pretty much controls the GOP these days, while the extremist left has almost no power at all in the Democratic Party, or anywhere else in America. That's why I don't blog about it much.)

The bottom line is that I'm a skeptic. That means I pay more attention to evidence than to ideology. In scientific issues, like global warming, I accept the consensus of scientists who specialize in that particular field. They may be wrong, but they've got a far better chance of being right than anyone else. And if they are wrong, the consensus will change.

With other issues - economic, political, social - I look at the evidence to tell me what has been shown to work and what has been shown not to work. Inevitably, it seems, that leads me away from the GOP. It does not always lead me to the Democratic Party, although that's the only real alternative. But generally, it does. (Some things, like New Age alternative medicine and anti-vaccine hysteria, seem to be adopted more by the left than the right, but not entirely.)

And I'm all for restoring sanity to America. I just wish I knew how it could be done. Reason clearly doesn't do it, nor does evidence. When we've come this far down the road to crazy town, what can bring us back? Well, maybe celebrities can do it. We Americans seem to be, er,... crazy about celebrities, for some reason. So maybe Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert can use star power to turn us around. It's worth a try.

Panhandlers

Ed Stein's commentary:

The battle over allowing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans has reached the election year boiling point. The Democrats (finally) are framing this debate properly and putting Republicans on the defensive, so much so that House minority leader John Boehner got spooked and said that he’d support extending the middle class tax cuts even if the cuts for those making more than $250,000 were not included. This was met with derision from the rest of his party, which smells victory in November and is no mood to compromise on anything. Republicans are having a hard time justifying extending a unpaid-for tax cut that will cost the government some $750 billion, while simultaneously demanding that the deficit be reduced. Nobody is buying the old trickle-down theory that the wealthy need that money to create jobs. They’ve got the money; where are the jobs? I do love the accusation that asking for the rich to pay their share is “class warfare.” The top 1% now receive 23% of the nation’s income, the highest level since before the Great Depression. The class war has already been won, and it’s the rest of us who lost.

That said, the GOP somehow still seems to be winning the populist points in this election. Now that the Dems have at least one argument in their favor, perhaps the bloodbath won’t be quite as horrendous come November, assuming the party can stay on message, which never seems to be its strong suit.

From what I hear, the worst of it isn't even that we Americans are too dumb, although that's certainly a major part. But the country is fairly evenly split in political opinion, at least. No, the worst of it is that Democrats are just too lazy or too apathetic to vote. When you look at likely voters, rather than just registered voters, the GOP wins in a landslide.

That's amazing, because less than two years ago, after the 2008 elections, the right-wing was down in the dumps. The Republicans had done nothing right when they held power, their president was (rightly) considered one of the worst in U.S. history (the worst, I'd say), and they were busy running even further to the right, losing every even half-way sensible moderate in the process.

So how did we end up here? I don't get it. Did people just expect the Democrats to wave a magic wand and instantly fix everything it took the Republicans eight years or more to break? We all know it's easier to destroy than to build, and it's been only a year and a half!. What did we expect? I'm not overly impressed with Barack Obama's performance, at least in boldly leading our country in a new direction, as he promised. (Admittedly, he also promised to compromise.) But I'm just astonished at how dumb the American people have turned out to be. Haven't we learned anything?

Or, as I say, how lazy we've turned out to be. We progressives want to change course, but we can't even be bothered to vote! It's just embarrassing. Dumb or lazy, take your pick. Either way, we Americans don't look too admirable. In a democracy, we get the kind of leadership we deserve. Can any democracy survive government by the people when the people are like this?

Warm regards

(Tom Toles)

The pink-faced half-wit

From that premier news source called The Onion comes this article about the pink-faced half-wit:

The most recent pink-faced half-wit has reportedly captured the popular imagination through the conventional vehicles of a nationally syndicated talk-radio program and a cable news television show. According to media analyst Rebecca Ellington, the pink-faced half-wit has mesmerized the nation by spewing out hundreds of predictably reactionary and emotionally manipulative on-air diatribes.

"This particular pink-faced half-wit is at the height of his persuasive powers," Ellington said of the bloated, hateful multimillionaire. "By exploiting citizens' greatest anxieties during an uncertain time in our nation's history, the pink-faced half-wit has been able to promote his own vain, avaricious self-interests under the guise of standing up for the very disenfranchised people whom he himself is fleecing."

"I've seen a number of pink-faced half-wits during my career, and in the pantheon of bombastic demagogues, this one will surely be remembered as one of the most disgusting," Ellington continued. "It's truly extraordinary: He may well be too ambitious and narcissistic to be able to comprehend how much damage he is doing to our country."

According to scholars, pink-faced half-wits have had remarkable staying power throughout history despite their outlandish, easily debunked claims, shameless self-promotion, and complete lack of credentials. More often than not, experts said, these pasty, shallow dullards skillfully manage to control debate on the most important social and political topics of the day.

Squirrel!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Islamophobiapalooza
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Edit: Apparently, putting two Daily Show clips in the same post (even when one is below the fold) causes problems, but only on the home page here. Click the link to view this post separately and both clips appear just fine.

How can people still watch Fox "News"? Are they just a symptom of how cowardly, gullible, and willfully ignorant we've become, or one of the main causes of it?

Below the fold, I'll post a brief follow-up clip from The Daily Show, with Team Mohammad and Team Jesus in strange agreement:

Toraliden, 1053

This is the continuing saga of the settlement of Toraliden, my latest Dwarf Fortress game (version 0.31.12). The first installment is here.

1053 was a rough year at Toraliden. It had started on a high note, when we were declared a barony, with our leader, Aban Joinedfortresses as baroness. Sure, she had demanded better quarters to suit her new rank, with a well-equipped office and a personal dining room, but that wasn't unexpected. Unfortunately, she soon stopped cooking for us. In fact, she started doing little of anything, except for holding occasional parties which pulled productive dwarves from their duties.

Litast Blowrelics, a legendary miner, high master woodcrafter, and talented metalcrafter, replaced Aban as mayor. He insisted on an upgrade in residence as well, and has demanded that we make some gold items, but at least he continues to work as hard as ever. We must be thankful for small favors, I suppose.

The humans sent a trading caravan in the summer, our first contact with that civilization ("The Curled Realm of Blankets" - an interesting name for a nation, don't you think?). But while they were here, they witnessed a terrible industrial accident. Rakust Praisedstockades, working high above ground on our planned goblin trap, misjudged the strength of a construction [my own error, in fact] and fell ten stories when the floor gave way beneath him. Worse, the dust cloud - or perhaps the vibration - knocked two other dwarves off the narrow ledge as well, nearly wiping out our small staff of trained masons. It was really a terrible sight, with arms, legs, and heads flying everywhere.

Rakust and Catten Tribebolt each left a child behind, but even worse, from the standpoint of our fledgling community, was the loss of Kitty Pagefills, a legendary weaponsmith and talented metalsmith who'd been moonlighting as a mason. The loss of any of these three fine dwarves would have been a terrible tragedy, but without Kitty, we can't build the high-quality weapons needed for our defense.

Trapped passage, ten stories above the ground. The pressure plate opens all hatches and the door alongside it.

But we continued to build the structure, using unskilled masons (urged to use extreme caution), finally finishing the job a few months later. Now, in the meadow just outside our moat and drawbridge, a stairs climbs ten stories, ending in a narrow catwalk leading high over the wall. At the other end, another stairs leads down into the heart of our fortress. But the catwalk is cleverly designed with a false bottom. It's a trap to catch trespassers.

Unfortunately, it soon proved to be far from foolproof. That winter, Sigun Patternspear, animal trainer and mechanic, was working at the kennel when he was surprised by goblins. The kennel is on a ledge, partway up the mountain, within our moat and safe from most attacks - but not, as it turned out, safe from arrows and crossbows shot from further up the mountain. Even so, Sigun would almost certainly have survived if he hadn't panicked, running away from safety instead of towards it. And once he was immobilized by a well-aimed crossbow bolt, there was little we could do for him. He bled out from multiple wounds.

Well, after that, we were anxious to get our revenge and watched with glee as the goblins, meeting our closed drawbridge, headed into our shiny new trap. But here is when we realized we hadn't fully thought things through. For one thing, we hadn't enclosed the staircase, expecting that our marksdwarves would get some target practice as the goblins climbed up in plain sight. We'd forgotten that they could shoot back. Even worse, the stair was high enough that they could shoot over our fortifications.

When we discovered our mistake, we tried to move our soldiers to safety, but two young recruits, Atlas Controlhalls and Thor Girderpets, were shot before they could get away. Then, as each goblin climbed high enough, he emptied his quiver into these two targets. (Thor suffocated in his own blood. Atlas is being treated in our hospital, in intensive care, still bleeding profusely and in intense pain, with all his extremities mangled, plus damage to his heart, guts, and pancreas. It's touch and go, and if he does survive, he may be crippled for life.)

Since each goblin stopped to shoot before continuing onward, they ended up well-separated, and when the leader stepped on the pressure plate built into the floor, opening up hatches in the corridor ahead and behind him, only one of his squad fell to his death. Yes, it was a rewarding sight, when that goblin hit the ground, pieces of him flying off in every direction. But it was still only one out of seven.

And that's when we discovered another design flaw. Blocked from going forward or back, the goblin leader (an elf, actually - apparently a snatched child, grown to adulthood among his kidnappers) stepped into the doorway that we'd opened for him. But then, instead of moving back to the stairs, he simply jammed the door open, and when the hatches closed again, he had a clear path into our fortress. Even worse, his remaining followers could also take that path, avoiding the trapped passageway and the pressure plate entirely. The entire goblin warparty ran towards our people, yelling terrifying battle cries.

Luckily, we hadn't entirely trusted our experiment, not without a good test first, so we had backup traps. Those killed two goblins and captured the others (including the elf leader). They're awaiting judgment - death, like that dealt out to the goblins we captured in earlier years (they were disarmed, then forced to face our entire military).

Losing five dwarves - with another barely clinging to life - has been a hard blow to our young fortress. Morale is still pretty high among our residents - we did construct modest bedrooms for everyone, and our dining hall is truly a wonder to behold - but our reputation has suffered. We received no immigrants at all this past year.

But we continue to build and we continue to explore. We've discovered vast caverns underground, amazing places which thrill our dwarven souls. And far, far underground, we think we've discovered magma. It's a long way off, but we might be able to harness it for our metal-forging and glass-melting workshops. We're using coal-fired forges now, but that's just not as elegant as using liquid rock. (On the other hand, coal is abundant and a lot closer to where it's needed.)

A small part of one cavern system, far underground at Toraliden.

Now that spring is here, we're hopeful that the new year will be better than the last (much better, if there's any justice in the world). We plan to make big changes to our flawed trap system, if goblins give us the time we need for rebuilding. We plan to explore the caverns and the magma ocean. (We must decide whether to make that long trek regularly, or instead, move our whole community further down into the heart of the mountain.) And we hope to start attracting immigrants again, since we desperately need a larger labor force. We're down to 55 dwarves right now, and five of them are just children.

We need a better warning system for goblin attacks, and we need to build walls and ceilings to protect against missile fire from above. For that, we desperately need new masons. And we need to improve our military, because we can't depend entirely on traps. Well, we're a young fortress, and there's always too much to do. But we've got a good location, with good resources, and we're becoming a regular stop on several different caravan routes, elf and human, as well as dwarf. Toraliden has only just begun to make a name for itself.

Note: Dwarven last names are composed of two words in the dwarf language (just as "Toraliden" means "Lawpaddles"). In this post, I've started to translate these names, which is different from how I started this  history. I don't know, it just seemed like "Patternspear" was easier to read and comprehend than "Lilarlokum."

Christians don't value human life

It's obvious, isn't it, that Christians don't value human life? Look at the tens of thousands of innocent women put to death - often burned alive - for "witchcraft." Men, too, sometimes.

Oh, they don't do that anymore? That was just a tragic episode in their history? Not true. "Witches" are still being killed in Africa. Furthermore, it's commanded in their holy book, that Christians must kill witches. It's still the same book. That hasn't changed.

If you claim that Christians have changed, that they do value human life these days, then why haven't they edited the Bible to remove that commandment (and the similarly disgusting promotions of genocide, slavery, and child-abuse)? Why aren't Christians protesting against these parts of their holy book? Why aren't they marching in the street, demanding that the worship of such life-destroying acts be ended forever?

Clearly, Christians don't value human life.

Turning to a completely different subject, I thought this article at TPM by Steve Clemons was interesting:

And now the editor in chief of one of Washington's most venerable rights-concerned journals of opinion, Martin Peretz, has written clearly that he doubts that Muslim lives are worth much and that in his gut he doesn't believe Muslims deserve the protections of American laws and civil rights.

Nick Kristoff writes:

For a glimpse of how venomous and debased the discourse about Islam has become, consider a blog post in The New Republic this month. Written by Martin Peretz, the magazine's editor in chief, it asserted: "Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims." Mr. Peretz added: "I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse."

One of my late mentors, Hans Baerwald, taught me that the only way to get a real rather than shallow sense of a political system's norms and operating behavior was to watch it under stress.

With commentary like that we have seen from John Bolton, Martin Peretz, Richard Cheney, Liz Cheney, Glenn Beck, and saw in the political maneuvering of Cheney Chief of Staff, David Addington, we unleashed an America that defiles key aspects of its own DNA and that is less-trustable by the rest of the world today.

To take this further, I think the debate today is not about the treatment of Muslims or those of Arab descent, but about the United States itself.

John Bolton and Martin Peretz, in undermining America's core values of a big-tent approach to accommodating and absorbing other societies, are not performing a patriotic duty -- but are displaying the opposite of American patriotism.

Muslims are impossibly vile and don't deserve civil rights like normal human beings. Just look at the Koran. We all know that believers follow every word in their holy books, right? And religions can't possibly change. In fact, we should probably edit the U.S. Constitution to remove citizenship from every Muslim - and members of every other religion that advocates violence...

Hey, I have no liking for Islam, myself (or Christianity, for that matter). But when did we Americans turn into the exact opposite of what America used to stand for? Is it just that we're such hopeless cowards that any threat at all turns us into gibbering lunatics? Please explain this to me, because I just don't get it.

Pipe dreams

Tom Toles' commentary:

There never is any reason to raise taxes, ever, we are told. It is always a good time to cut taxes, we are told. This is not thinking. This is a badly programmed robot. Sometimes you will hear a discussion of what is the optimum tax level to yield the highest revenue but burden the economy the least, but you won't hear that conversation in the United States because it's against the law here, according to the conservative Supreme Court's narrow reading of the Constitution.

Here's another conversation you won't hear. At what point does the share of U.S. income that is taken in by the richest 1 percent actually start to undermine the economy? This discussion is also illegal here, but I'm taking my chances. That share has DOUBLED in the last thirty years and is now close to a FIFTH of the whole pie! Less share for YOU, if you struggled in math. Is this bad? Would 50 percent be bad? 95 percent?

But they INVEST that money in productive enterprises that benefit us all. But DO they? Mightn't there be a point where there is more money in this storied "investor class" than they can use productively? Why, you might end up with destructive investment BUBBLES! Like, oh, a HOUSING bubble, instead of more exports. Wild conjecture, I know, but just theoretically possible. Or maybe they would spend their time working on elaborate ultra high-speed stock trading that takes wealth out of the market that comes from...where? I don't know, and as long as the conservative media complex is misidentified as liberal media, we never will.

What's even crazier is that this was the exact same thinking throughout the Bush Administration, and it led to nothing but disaster. The wealthy took their money and used it non-productively, creating bubbles in arcane financial instruments, record-breaking budget deficits, and the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. And our experience then has made no difference at all.

Republicans are campaigning on the exact same policies that led directly to these disasters - and just recently, too - and they're not being laughed off the political stage. Amazing, isn't it? In fact, it's just beyond belief. You couldn't write fiction like this, because no one would believe it. It's like we Americans have completely lost touch with reality.

Why does no one care that we're becoming a banana republic, with a super-elite minority owning - and controlling - more and more of our nation? Why the insistence that the wealthy pay even less in taxes? What happened to the idea of a strong middle class in America, with fewer at the extremes of wealth, both above and below?

And why do we think that corporations don't have enough power in our political system? Why have we come to see no difference between a corporation and a human being? I thought that television commercials would make us immune - or at least resistant - to corporate PR, but that apparently hasn't happened. We're just as much the gullible, ignorant rubes as ever. No, we're even more so, since I couldn't see this happening decades ago.

What in the world has happened to us?

Non-Belief, Pt. 5: Ethics

My post a week ago, about that discussion thread at Pharyngula, brought this to mind. Commonly, we're supposed to just assume that religious leaders are the experts in ethics and morality. I'll hear that science can't tell us anything about those things. And believers will wonder out loud how - and why - we atheists can be ethical without a god telling us what to do (and enforcing the rules with threats of damnation).

You may not know any atheists (we look like everyone else and often have reason to be discreet), but we all know Christians. Are they all good people? One of the reasons I was skeptical as a child was that church-going didn't seem to improve people. Some of the devout were very nice; some were quite nasty. But there didn't seem to be a correlation between belief and behavior. (As an adult, I still haven't seen one.)

If clerics are such moral leaders, shouldn't people who get more instruction be clearly better than the rest of us? Shouldn't the clerics themselves be the best of all? A look at the recent pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church should tell you that's not necessarily the case.

Oh, but that's not your religion, huh? Well, that's the other problem. How do you pick the right religion, then? The vast majority of us pick it by... being born into it. In other words, your religious belief is simply an accident of birth. If you'd been born in another nation, and especially in some other time, your belief would be completely different,... but just as firm as it is now.

How could we even consider that clerics are the experts in ethics and morality? Have you ever read the Bible? It supports slavery, genocide, child-beating, the killing of "witches" and heretics, and all manner of vile behavior we've risen above these days. To be even slightly moral today, you must ignore or rationalize away a good part of your holy book (whatever it is).

In fact, the progress we've made in ethical behavior has generally come despite the fierce resistance of religion. To be sure, believers have normally been on both sides of every important issue. But churches in the South - the Bible Belt even then - owned slaves, and even sold babies to raise money for spreading the good word. Congregations fought hard against racial integration and women's suffrage. And religious groups today lead the fight against gay rights.

It's true that science doesn't focus on proper behavior. That's not its purpose. But that doesn't mean it can't tell us anything about ethics and morality, either. We can recognize that we evolved certain characteristics because we're social animals, because cooperation has always been essential to our survival. And we can see similar traits in other primates, too - for the same reason. This helps to put things in perspective, so we can understand why we think and feel as we do.

But generally, ethical behavior isn't that difficult to identify. Unless you're a psychopath, you can normally just feel what's right and what's wrong. You may do what's wrong anyway, but it's rarely because you can't tell the difference. (Actively trying to help other people might indeed be difficult, since you must weigh short-term and long-term effects, but that's less a case of right vs wrong than just... trying to decide between two rights.)

If you really want a specific guideline, the Golden Rule works well enough: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." However, this isn't specifically Christian, or even specifically religious. It's been a common philosophy worldwide and throughout our history, in one form or another. But ordinarily, it's only been applied to "us" and not "them," and pretty much the entire advance of ethical thinking has basically been to enlarge the pool of "us" and shrink the number of people considered "them."

Note that another ethical guideline, "turn the other cheek," is often praised, but rarely practiced. And that's for very good reason. Pacifism works sometimes, in specific, very limited situations, but it's a poor philosophy in general. We all know that. We'll all fight to defend ourselves and our families, whatever lip-service we pay to Jesus. In fact, if you won't support a common defense, you'll be a burden on others who do need to defend the community. So I'd argue that "turn the other cheek" is seldom ethical.

So, do we really need god-given guidelines in order to tell ethical from unethical behavior? Let's look at the Ten Commandments. (There are different versions, but they're all similar enough for our purposes. For convenience, I'll use this list, which is near the top in a Google search.)

The first four are just religious observances - prohibitions against other gods, against making representational art, against blasphemy, and against working on the Sabbath. These are similar to biblical prohibitions against eating shellfish or wearing clothing of mixed fibers. If you're not a Christian, they're hardly a matter of ethics. And even Christians normally pick and choose which to obey.

"Honor your father and your mother" might seem like a good rule, but most of us don't need a rule like that. We naturally love our parents, just like they naturally love us. And if your parent did not deserve your love - if your father beat you or raped you, for example - you shouldn't honor him. So as an ethical guideline, this is either completely unnecessary or erroneous, depending on the circumstances.

The next four are quite reasonable guidelines, as far as they go, being prohibitions against murder, adultery, theft, and perjury. But, again, they're hardly necessary. Religious or not, we all know that these things are wrong. This doesn't help with the difficult questions, like whether or not capital punishment is "murder." And it doesn't include other kinds of behavior that are equally wrong, like rape.

And the last commandment is not to covet what belongs to someone else. (Yeah, rape isn't important enough to be a commandment, but envy is. Go figure!) Is this really a valid ethical rule? Well, that might depend on your definition of "covet." You might admire your neighbor's wife, envy his house, and lust after his ass (or his ox), but none of that is wrong if it's not taken too far. In fact, it might even be beneficial, if it causes you to work harder to get a similar house (or wife) yourself.

So how can we atheists be ethical without a god telling us that murder is wrong? Well, you know that rape is wrong, and there's nothing in your Bible about that. You know that raising hybrid cattle isn't wrong, despite biblical prohibitions. And you know that it's not right to beat your kid with a stick, even though the Bible says it is. Ordinarily, this isn't rocket-science. And for really difficult ethical questions, your religion is no help anyway.

OK, so much for the how. How about the why? Why would atheists behave themselves without the ever-present threat of hellfire (or the promise of heaven)? Well, I'm not a sociopath, so I don't like to cause suffering to other people. I've felt pain myself, physical and emotional, and it's not fun. Why would I want to inflict pain on someone else? I'd feel terrible about that!

When I've done something wrong, I've felt ashamed of myself. If I've hurt someone else, I've felt like a heel. I don't like that feeling. I have empathy. I recognize that others are people just like me. I can imagine their pain. When I was a child, maybe I needed the threat and the promise of Santa Claus to behave well, I don't know. But I certainly don't as an adult.

If I couldn't feel those things, as a natural consequence of being a normal human being, I would hope that I could still think my way into knowing what was wrong and what was right. And if I could tell right from wrong, why would I want to do what was wrong? Well, some people do (and the vast majority of them - like people in general - are religious believers). I'm no expert on why that happens, but I do know that religious belief doesn't seem to prevent it.

Traditionally, the mafia was a big supporter of the Catholic Church. (I don't know if that's still the case or not.) They certainly weren't atheists. So, why didn't they believe they were going to Hell? Why did they continue murder and theft, biggies in the Ten Commandments? Their religious beliefs certainly didn't stop them, so why would you think that atheists couldn't be moral without religion?

We do have secular laws, and at least part of the justification for them is as a deterrent. If I really wanted to murder someone, the consequences under our legal system might indeed deter me. Frankly, they almost certainly would. So the threat of Hell, in addition to that, would be completely immaterial.

Also, I strongly suspect if I really wanted to murder someone, I could probably convince myself that it was approved by my god. The Bible, for example, contains all sorts of justification for murder. You just have to pick and choose which parts  you want to obey. Certainly believers have had no problem killing people for centuries - witches, heretics, adulterers, abortion doctors, atheists, criminals, enemy soldiers,... the list goes on and on.

Atheists are at least as ethical as believers, and religious leaders are not experts in ethics or morality, despite their claims. And since there's no consensus in religion (unlike in science), even if they were, you'd have to first pick the right religion (and then, likely, the right denomination within it). I don't need any of that, and neither do you. It's rarely hard to tell right from wrong. And when you understand that you depend on a community of people, you'll understand why you should do the right thing.

___
Note: The rest of this series is here.

More sleazy campaigning

I just received a telephone call which turned out to be a fake poll - from the Nebraska Republican Party. Of course, they don't tell you that, at first. They have to tell you that they paid for the poll, eventually, but it's set up as a real poll - only with terribly slanted questions. By the end of the thing, even the guy hired for this purpose was laughing as he was asking them.

Like that previous instance of sleazy campaigning, this was the Nebraska GOP trying to influence the state legislative race, an officially non-partisan position, in my district. My current state senator, Danielle Conrad, went door-to-door in my neighborhood last April. We talked for quite some time, as she answered my questions.

But the only thing I know about her opponent, besides his name, is that he must be a Republican, since the Nebraska GOP is making such a big effort on his behalf. (Of course, this is basically a one-party state, so they don't need to spend money on partisan races.) From Chad Wright himself, I've heard nothing at all. I've certainly heard nothing about his positions, about how he'd act differently than Conrad. No, it's been nothing but negative campaigning on his behalf by the Republican Party.

I hope this sort of thing isn't rewarded, but I wouldn't be surprised if he won. This is a very red state. People vote Republican because they've always voted Republican, and they believe what they hear on Fox "News." After those eight disastrous years of the Bush Administration, ending in the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, it's hard to believe that anyone still votes Republican. But people aren't that rational, I guess.

Burn a Quran Day

Do I have to point out that this is a parody? Heh, heh. I hope not!

Yeah, this is all crazy talk from a few lunatics, but TPM makes a good point about taking responsibility:

Speaking just now on MSNBC James Zogby made a very good point -- and pressed Andrea Mitchell on it. His point was that sure, this Pastor Jones fool is one guy, who's managed to get worldwide attention for his stunt. But you cannot separate him, as I noted below, from the whole climate of hate speech and anti-Muslim agitation from the Newt Gingriches and the Sarah Palins and the rest of them.

At that point, Mitchell jumped in and said, wait, Palin said she disagrees with the Koran burning. To which Zogby replied, something to the effect of 'C'mon'. And that's just the right reply. This is the standard approach of race haters and demagogues. They keep stirring the pot, churning out demonizing rhetoric and hate speech. Then some marginal figure does something nuts and suddenly ... oh, wait, I didn't mean burn Korans. Where'd you get that idea from? We were just saying that Islam is a violent, anti-American religion and that American Muslims should stop building their mosques and focus on apologizing for 9/11 and maybe get out of America. But burn the Koran? No way.

That's a bit much.

Actions have consequences. This isn't about one guy.

Note that this isn't about criticizing Islam, either. You don't have the right not to get your feelings hurt. No matter what you believe yourself, other people have the right to criticize and, yes, ridicule it. And this Jones guy does have the right to burn his own property, no matter what any other religious group might think about it. There's absolutely no question about that.

No, this is about anti-Muslim hate speech which encourages not just this sort of thing, but actual violence to innocent Muslims (which has indeed increased in America recently). After all, it's also a fact that you have the right to practice your own religion in this country - no matter what I think about it, no matter what anyone thinks about it. We also have a culture that considers your religious beliefs to be your own business, by and large. That's a good thing.

Again, it doesn't mean that your beliefs are immune to criticism. It doesn't mean that people won't laugh at them. It doesn't mean that you won't get your feelings hurt by comments, jokes, or... cartoons. What it means is that, bottom line, no matter what, you have the right to believe what you want. It also means that you should be treated as an individual, not as a stereotype. Whatever your race, whatever your religion, whatever your national origin - none of that matters. You are still an equal citizen of the United States of America.

There may be a fine line between criticism/ridicule and whipping up anger and hysteria towards an entire class of people, but there is a line, a very definite line that is normally quite easy to discern. You don't step over that line by accident. And unfortunately, the recent climate of "hate speech and anti-Muslim agitation" from the right-wing has very definitely crossed the line. In particular, note that, in this case, the only reason for Koran-burning it to try to provoke a violent response from Muslims. (Do I really need to point out that this response would be even more wrong than provoking it? C'mon!)

I have no liking for any religion, and I dislike Islam more than most. I will continue to criticize it, and even ridicule it, as I see fit. At the same time, you have the right to disagree with me. If you're a Muslim, that's your own business. It doesn't mean that you're a terrorist. It doesn't mean that you're not a real American citizen, that you're not a "patriot." (Honestly, I'm heartily sick of the assumption by Republicans that you have to be a Christian to be a patriotic American.) It does mean that I'll treat you just like everyone else.

The fact is, I disagree with most people I know, including friends and relatives. So what? We're a diverse country, and we can agree to disagree. This isn't difficult. We do it all the time in America. Your neighbor is a Republican (or a Democrat). Your neighbor is a Catholic (or a Protestant or a Jew or any number of other religions). Your neighbor is Hispanic (or black or white or Asian). Your neighbor is a gay, atheist, libertarian mime. You can think whatever you like about any of this, and you can express your opinions (although common politeness might mean that you won't bring up the subject unnecessarily), but fundamentally, it's their business, not yours.

We all know this. It's how we live in civilized countries. This is what it means to be an American. Whipping up hysteria about any group is fundamentally un-American (although, yes, it's happened time and time again in our country). It's not a matter of limiting debate, not at all. It's just the recognition that we all have to live together, whatever our differences. Even if you're not an American, we're all human beings. We still have to live together, and we still have the right to our differences. This is not rocket-science, it really isn't. So why are we still having problems with this kind of thing?

Michelle Malkin's latest lie

From Sara Benincasa at Indecision Forever:

Everyone's favorite hysterical reactionary, Michelle Malkin, has many dumb things to say, all the time. This week, she took aim at Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire investor and Obama supporter George Soros, who donated $100 million to international nonprofit Human Rights Watch.Malkin writes, "The anti-Israel bias of HRW is so brazen that liberal lawyer Alan Dershowitz took to the blogosphere to denounce it," conveniently neglecting to mention that Alan Dershowitz thinks everyone who does not agree with his every thought is, in fact, a bloodthirsty anti-Semite. Malkin then directs folks to this "must-read" by Ezra Levant, which reads, in part…

When the Nazis took total control of Hungary in 1944, the Holocaust followed. In two months, 440,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to death camps.
To survive, George, then a teenager, collaborated with the Nazis.
First, he worked for the Judenrat. That was the Jewish council set up by the Nazis to do their dirty work for them. Instead of the Nazis rounding up Jews every day for the trains, they delegated that murderous task to Jews who were willing to do it to survive another day at the expense of their neighbours.

Levant later adds, "By collaborating with the Nazis, George survived the Holocaust. He turned on other Jews to spare himself."
Here's an exciting thought. Let's see what Soros himself actually says about that time, in a handy-dandy 1994 interview with The New Republic…

"The Jewish Council asked the little kids to hand out the deportation notices. I was told to go to the Jewish Council. And there I was given these small slips of paper. It was three or four lines. It said report to the rabbi seminary at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. Bring a blanket and food for twenty-four hours. And I was given a list of names. I took this piece of paper to my father. He instantly recognized it, you see. This was a list of Hungarian Jewish lawyers. He said, 'You deliver the slips of paper and tell the people that if they report they will be deported.' I'm not sure to what extent he knew they were going to be gassed. I did what my father said. There was one man I shall not forget. I took it to him and told him what my father had said. He said: 'Tell your father that I am a law-abiding citizen, that I have always been a law-abiding citizen and I am not going to start breaking the law now.' And that stayed with me forever."

So, this kid, who was 14 years old at the time, collaborated with his father to give Jews potentially life-saving information about the true nature of the Nazis' intent. If any Nazis had gotten word that he and his father were tipping Jews off to their deportation, George and his father would most likely have been "deported" themselves — i.e., sent to a death camp and gassed.

This is not a new claim. It's been everywhere in right-wing circles: "George Soros, Nazi collaborator." In fact, Soros was 14 years old at the time. His father had bribed a government official into claiming that George was his Christian godson, and so that official took his "godson" along when performing his official duty (including confiscating Jewish property).

This saved the youngster from deportation - from the death camps, in fact. Of course, he didn't know about the death camps at the time, but that hardly matters. Who would object to this kind of deception, even from an adult, let along a boy obeying his father? What should he have done? What would you have done? Ignore Benincasa's point, if you like, that Soros was actually warning these people. Even then, what would he have to feel guilty about?

But to right-wing fanatics like Malkin, the truth doesn't matter. What matters is only the political impact of their accusations. If it works to further their far-right political views, then who cares if it's a lie? (And as I say, this has been around a long time. She had to know it was a lie.)

Unfortunately, these days, it's not just fanatics who seem to think like this. It's mainstream conservative thinking. (Or maybe it's just that far-right fanaticism has become mainstream conservative thinking.) If a lie works, use it. "Death panels"? Why not? Who cares that end-of-life counseling and care had been a long-time Republican interest? How can mere benefit to dying Americans stand up to political ambition? Conservatives must prioritize, after all.

Although it's certainly worse these days, I wonder if it's really anything new. I'm reminded of this quote by Adlai Stevenson: "I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them."

Nevertheless, it used to be that honest conservatives would stand up to people like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Michelle Malkin. Who dares to do that these days? Whenever any Republican politician makes the slightest negative comment about Limbaugh, he's soon forced to come crawling back on his hands and knees, begging forgiveness. Well, when "dittoheads" are your base, this is the kind of thing you can expect, don't you think?

Of course, you could use reason and evidence to attract a higher class of supporter (which would also be very beneficial to America),... but then, you wouldn't be so sure of getting elected or re-elected. And you certainly wouldn't get that high-paying gig on Fox "News." Yeah, appealing to the lowest common denominator works in politics as well as on TV.

Let me assure you that I have no problem with honest criticism of George Soros - or of the Human Rights Watch. What I object to is the lying, the misrepresentation, the guilt-by-association commonly used by the right-wing, from Fox "News" on down. If you've got an honest argument, let's hear it. When you lower yourself to this sort of thing, it makes me think that you don't actually have any valid arguments on your side.

And if you're a right-winger yourself, ask yourself why you're surrounded by these kinds of people. Are  you proud of that? So what are you doing there?

Chaos as cretins provoke morons

(Jesus and Mo)

Re. the title, you did notice the cover article in the publication Jesus is reading, right? :)

Jobs outlook

Ed Stein's commentary:

I’m as perplexed as anyone by the lack of focus among Democrats running for office this election. It starts at the top, with a White House that has been unable to produce a coherent election message. It ought to be easy, especially for as gifted an orator as Obama, but he’s been bizarrely unable to connect with voters this time around. The message should be simple: we have enormous challenges as a nation, but when the going gets tough we Americans have always risen to the occasion, and here’s what we need to do. And then lay out an ambitious agenda and keep hammering it home and criticizing those who stand in the way as the obstructionists they are. But we haven’t heard anything of the sort. Somehow, this administration has never managed to figure out that it’s jobs, stupid; instead it has flitted from one subject to the next, hoping something works, and praying that the economy will respond before it’s too late. It’s too late. Republicans have done absolutely nothing to earn our trust, but given the inability of the Democrats to use their power effectively, the other party is the only alternative, and it looks as though they will gain significantly across the board.

I can't understand how we Americans could possibly consider putting the Republicans back in power - the same Republicans who brought us this mess, have dragged their feet in cleaning it up, and, worst of all, are pushing the same ideas that got us into this disastrous position in the first place. How can we be this dumb?

But I'm not happy with how Barack Obama has let this happen, either. What happened to his oratory? What happened to his leadership? We need a leader, dammit! Congress can't lead. It's a legislative body. We need the executive to lead. The President of the United States has the world's biggest bully pulpit, so why not use it?

Obama has been too busy trying to get along with his political opponents. Well, guess what? That's not working and it's not going to work. As usual, Democrats in general seem to be too timid. Arguing your own position, passionately and forcefully, isn't tyranny (although Fox "News" will always argue that it is, when Democrats do it). And incremental measures aren't going to work here.

For once, Democrats - and particularly Barack Obama - need to be bold. So what if it won't get past the continual Republican filibuster in the Senate? Nothing else will, either. We need Obama to propose bold policies - and then hammer away at them over and over and over again. Use the bully pulpit. Lead this country.

The biggest problem with the upcoming election is that progressives are discouraged and apathetic. We thought we were getting real change, and we got timid little half-measures, instead. OK, so you can't get bold policies through Congress. But you can propose them, and fight like a tiger every step of the way, instead of "compromising" and giving away everything unilaterally, without getting anything at all in return. We got politicians timidly sticking one toe in the water, to judge the political temperature first, instead of plunging in with a roar. Show them,... show us something worth fighting for and we'll vote. (I plan to vote anyway, of course, no matter what, since apathy is not an option.)

It's not just on the economy, either. Yes, jobs are number one. But Democrats need to fire up their base. So let's see real movement on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Not just behind the scenes, either. Let's see the President hammer at this, over and over again. Heck, let's see him boldly stand up for gay marriage. And, absolutely, let's see him boldly stand up for America's traditional separation of church and state. No half-measures! Also, one thing Joe Biden can do immediately is to challenge Senate rules in court, since the current filibuster takes away his constitutionally-mandated duty to break ties. Above all else, let's see some boldness!

I'm not the only one who can see this, so why can't the Democratic Party? We had a chance to turn this country around, but that chance has almost slipped through our feeble grasp. Heck, it might be too late already. But bold people won't let that worry stop them. And timidly cowering under our beds certainly won't help!

Pat Robertson's Regent University

(The Far Left Side)

We haven't learned anything

"Like another Bristol-Levi reunion!" Heh, heh. No kidding!

Tom Toles' commentary:

I guess this is the mood of the electorate this year, as far as I can tell.

-We are fine with the trend of an ever-greater share of the American economy going to the very richest people. We like a tax policy that encourages this trend. We don't feel that power follows wealth and so do not fear any negative consequences from this.

-We oppose any actually workable plans to rationalize the health care system in this country and feel that the long trends of ever-increasing costs for ever-shrinking coverage will fix themselves.

-We prefer more religion in government and schools and less science, and we feel this will lead to good outcomes.

-An opinion that climate science is wrong will make it be wrong.

-Deficits didn't matter before, but now they are all we can think about.

-We blame President Obama for the bad economy, but anything he does about it can only make things worse and make us blame him even more.

-We like Republicans even less than Democrats but plan to elect them in a landslide, and that this will improve things.

Did I miss anything?

Did he miss anything? Yes:

-We think that brown and black people are out to get us real Americans, so you can tell by looking at him that Barack Obama has some evil scheme in mind.

-We're confident that Jesus will return soon and put everything right, so why should we human beings bother about anything past next week?

-We dislike those egghead scientists who think they're so smart, just because they're educated and, you know, knowledgeable about stuff.

-If we really want something to be true, it must be true. I mean, haven't you ever seen Oprah.

The world's first experiment in terraforming

(photo source)

Here's a fascinating article at the BBC about the "world's first experiment in terraforming."

Two hundred years ago, Ascension Island was a barren volcanic edifice.

Today, its peaks are covered by lush tropical "cloud forest".

What happened in the interim is the amazing story of how the architect of evolution, Kew Gardens and the Royal Navy conspired to build a fully functioning, but totally artificial ecosystem.

In 1836, Charles Darwin stopped at Ascension Island, a volcanic "cinder" of an island in the south Atlantic, completely devoid of trees. A few years later, his friend, the botanist Joseph Hooker, also visited the island.

Ascension was a strategic base for the Royal Navy. Originally set up to keep a watchful eye on the exiled emperor Napoleon on nearby St Helena, it was a thriving waystation at the time of Hooker's visit.

However, the big problem that impeded further expansion of this imperial outpost was the supply of fresh water.

Ascension was an arid island, buffeted by dry trade winds from southern Africa. Devoid of trees at the time of Darwin and Hooker's visits, the little rain that did fall quickly evaporated away.

Egged on by Darwin, in 1847 Hooker advised the Royal Navy to set in motion an elaborate plan. With the help of Kew Gardens - where Hooker's father was director - shipments of trees were to be sent to Ascension.

The idea was breathtakingly simple. Trees would capture more rain, reduce evaporation and create rich, loamy soils. The "cinder" would become a garden.

So, beginning in 1850 and continuing year after year, ships started to come. Each deposited a motley assortment of plants from botanical gardens in Europe, South Africa and Argentina.

These weren't invasive species, because there wasn't anything there to invade. But the cloud forest that exists there now is entirely artificial. According to the article, no one is studying it. If that's true, it's really a shame. How does the ecology function when everything has been brought to the island from elsewhere?

How about animal life? How about insects? Is the ecology stable, or still in flux. This seems remarkable to me. Surely, there's a lot we could learn from it. In fact, the article suggests that what we could learn there might be useful in terraforming Mars:

"What it tells us is that we can build a fully functioning ecosystem through a series of chance accidents or trial and error."

In effect, what Darwin, Hooker and the Royal Navy achieved was the world's first experiment in "terra-forming". They created a self-sustaining and self-reproducing ecosystem in order to make Ascension Island more habitable.

[Dr. Dave] Wilkinson thinks that the principles that emerge from that experiment could be used to transform future colonies on Mars. In other words, rather than trying to improve an environment by force, the best approach might be to work with life to help it "find its own way".

Naturally, terraforming Mars would be a lot bigger trick than this, but Ascension Island is worth studying, I'd think. Meanwhile, check out these pictures of Mars (I've copied one of them below). Neat as they are, just imagine them with green vegetation. That would be an enormous project, of course, but we'd have a whole world to gain.

The aliens

Action movie

(Savage Chickens)