Page 425 of the Health Care Bill, Head-deskery of the highest order.

The kind of thing that really irks me as a skeptic (and the kind of thing to make me update my blog for the first time in months) is the kind of fly off the handle reaction to news that is designed to scare the hell out of people. If I were to be in some position of authority and go on the radio claiming that in 2 days an asteroid the size of the moon was about to plow through the Earth, there is a large percentage of the population that would start up their last rights without once looking up to do the very easy job of verifying the news. What I got in my email inbox today fit this scenario quite nicely.

Lacking PZ's Block quote of Gumbies, a standard block quote must do...

Hi, Be sure to listen to the Fred Thompson interviews at the bottom of the e-mail. This is unbelievable.

It's TIME to contact our representatives, folks!! Is this not ridiculous??

(If this doesn't make your blood boil........... nothing will!!) Page 425 of Health20Care Bill - Listen to this interview Fred Thompson's Radio Show interviewing Betsy McCaughey (pronounced Mc Coy). Or look it up onwww.fredthompsonshow.com, under interviews. On page 425 it says in black and white that EVERYONE on Social Security, (will include all Senior Citizens and SSI people) will go to MANDATORY counseling every 5 years to learn and to choose from ways to end your suffering (and your life). Health care will be denied based on age. 500 Billion will be cut from Seniors healthcare. The only way for that to happen is to drastically cut health care, the oldest and the sickest will be cut first. Paying for your own care will not be an option. Now, CALL YOUR PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tell them to read page 425 if they don't read anything else. Surely some of them have parents. CF "ON PAGE 425 OF OBAMA’S HEALTH CARE BILL, the Federal Government will require EVERYONE who is on Social Security to undergo a counseling session every 5 years with the objective being that they will explain to them just how to end their own life earlier. Yes...They are going to push SUICIDE to cut medicare spending!" Fred Thompson: Interviews (BE SURE TO CLICK ON THE ABOVE LINE!)

So right off the bat we've got Authority behind the statement, and we even have the confirmation bias going too. Conservative listeners to a conservative radio show are probably more inclined to believe that Evil Liberal Obama wants to kill Grandma to save a few bucks. Cue immediate acceptance of the claim sans any evidence for it what so ever.

The email even encouraged me to "Read below the details from page 425" despite the fact that nowhere in the email was any part of that page quoted. Merely some one's thoughts on the interview of someone else that said they read the bill. Are we seeing where this Skep is having a problem yet?

The email oozed with emotional appeal based on a claim that it seems no one down the chain before it came to me thought to verify. And it really isn't that hard. They've said its in the health care bill on page 425. This bill must be on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'. Oh wait... its online (http://docs.house.gov/edlabor/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf).

If you take the time to click that link and scroll to page 425 you will find a discussion of the nefarious plot to have Social Security recipients meet a councilor every 5 years to discuss... power of attorney? Hospice care? Advanced directives? Wait, where's the euthanasia clause? The part of this bill that says we have to knock off the old often and early to cut costs of health care? The part that says the elderly will be denied care because they're old? It looks, to me at least, like it isn't there at all.

Seems like a lot of people are going to have their legs pulled soon by this email and I expect to be hearing these claims in the news soon. To all the people that will be hearing this, remember that the more a claim seems tailored to make you believe it, the more you should want to go out and verify it.

The Accolade - best news I've ever heard out of Saudi Arabia

Anyone from the west has probably heard many of the horrible things to come out of Saudi Arabia involving women. Women being arrested for meeting a business partner in public, a woman charged as a criminal for being raped, women being arrested and beaten for "being a witch", etc. Well here is something great to come out of SA, an all girl band called The Accolade. Apparently, these girls have managed to successfully go against the reactionary culture of their homeland in order to Rock Out. Take a listen to their first hit (this is the best sound quality YouTube vid I could find of them, also has lyrics)...



I seriously hope to hear more from them soon. Only good things can happen when women gain freedom. The would be tyrants here in America thrash around the most anytime they are reminded that they no longer hold lock and key over our women's bodies and minds. Rock Hard girls of Saudi Arabia! You are an inspiration.

Tip of the horns to The Young Turks for reporting on them. I never would have known otherwise.

Behold turning the other cheek

Tip of the hat to Norm at onegoodmove on this.

Remember when "offensive" displays of Mohamed sparked Islamic believers around the world into violence in disorder. Well, apparently the other Abrahamic faiths can be just as bitchy.

Christians have warned of a backlash of art world vandalism, following a decision to halt a private prosecution of a Gateshead gallery which exhibited a statue of Jesus with an erection.

Yes, that's right. No bomb-turban equivalent depicting your religious figurehead as a violence-inciting being... just a statue of Jesus with a feature that most people would hope he'd be able to have if he were in fact born as a man. I'm not sure why displaying the savior as flaccid would be any better... seems to me that portraying the savior of all souls as virile and masculine would be just the thing most Abrahamic groups would want. Of course no "offense" to Christianity would be complete without a little fatwa-envy...

Christian Emily Mapfuwa, 40, of Brentwood, Essex, said the show, entitled Gone, Yet Still - was offensive to her faith and instructed her lawyers to seek a private prosecution against the gallery. She argued the Baltic would not have dared depict Mohammed in such a way.

And we even have some wonderful examples of turning the other cheek...

"If the CPS wanted to give the green light to blasphemous art their decision may paradoxically have the opposite effect. With the threat of destruction hanging over it, the Zabludowicz statue is now locked away by its wealthy owners and is unlikely to see the light of day again. The same will go for any other blasphemous works of so-called art. Put simply, Christians won't tolerate insults to Jesus Christ.

You hear that! They won't tolerate it. Despite the fact that as written, the man seemed to be the kind of character that would very much tolerate insults and did quite a few times. Also that whole being god thing and being above small human goals and perspectives. Seems like Jesus wouldn't have such a fragile self-esteem to go all teary at the sight of his own turgidness and need someone to hide behind for protection. Hell, if their god is so powerful, why should they need to resort to destructive disorder? Why not just pray for god to afflict the offenders with a pox of some sort (you know, get all old testament and such).

But let us not forget... they weren't forced to see this statue. It also wasn't as if they weren't warned.

Warning signs at the doors to the gallery warned of the exhibition's contents - which included dozens of plaster figures including ET and Mickey Mouse, all with erections.

Sounds to me that much like the "offense" cause during the Mohamed cartoons, the offense here was carefully constructed for the purpose of using terror and threats of violence to get their way.

Monday morning, economy plummets?

More effects of the impending socialism from Comrade Obama and the librul congress. The DJI opened today up about 200 points from yesterday. As with my last post, I blame Obama for this rise in the market. Just watch that market wince.

Must be all that Socialism

Yeah, everyone saw it coming. I've heard all over my office and from relatives about how if Obama is elected and the Democrats take over congress, the stock market will be negatively effected. Well, I guess they were right.

The DJI just rose 248.1 points today. I blame all that socialism.

I should have grounded my irony meter today.

Final decision on prop 8

As I have stated on my Facebook page and in person to several friends, I will now state here...

California, go eat a bag of dicks!

I am aware that this is not a rational argument, but the argument from those that supported prop 8 wasn't either. It was nothing more than lies, slander, and fear-mongering. If you meet things like that with reason, you simply give them legitimacy, as Jefferson said "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."

The "New Atheist Movement" is far from over

There is an article over at the Huffington Post that makes a strong declaration. Not only has President-Elect Obama's victory struck a possibly fatal blow to the Religious Right, but it has also done the same to the, and I really hate the term, New Atheist Movement (as a recent Atheist myself, even I don't see how the statement "I don't believe in God" said by me 2 years ago is so revised and new-fangled than Schopenhauer saying the same words in the 19th century).

Now that is a big claim to make, and I feel like I should give the article a much more thorough going through later, but the claims I have read in it are enough that I can make a counter-claim. This may very well have struck out the religious right, but the drive of secularism seems in no way to be undone. I should early on make it clear that Atheism is no basis for a political movement, nor has it claimed to be one. Secularism, however, is and you can be secular while also having religious beliefs. From this point on I will address the conflict as between the Religious Right and the Secular Movement since trying to pin Atheists to the right or left is like trying to pick the political party of "those that don't collect stamps".

The motives of the religious right are not just to have a spiritual/religious person in office that says nice things about religion and finds inspiration in it, they want someone that will not be afraid to come to my home and force me to my knees and to a conversion. They want someone that will make every law from the Bible a part of the American law. Not just "Thou shalt not kill" (which how many times does YHVH order that one broken with flourish), but that the death penalty should exist for adultery, apostasy, blasphemy, homosexuality, cheeking your parents (to borrow Prof. Dawkins' charming usage), and working on the Sabbath.

The mistake made in Schaeffer's article is in thinking that the secular movement wants the same thing, but from a different direction. That we want a president to come in and declare religion illegal and demand that all peoples come and worship at the altars of philosophical materialism, psychological monism, and methodological naturalism. That we are demanding that blind devotionals to great scientist be forced upon students in school at the beginning of each day ("Oh, Darwin, who art dead now, hallowed be thy theories." or "Whoever wants to be saved should above all cling to the Principia of Newton. Whoever does not guard it whole and inviolable will doubtless perish eternally.")

So what is the secular movement looking for? All we want is for reason to stand in its rightful place. Reason and rational argument are what have lead to our modern advancements and even the creation of the US government. No matter the inspiration of these ideas, such as Newton's hope to understand the hand of god in the universe by studying it or the Founder's hope to uphold rights they felt were endowed to men by a creator of some sort (they didn't specify), the works that came out of these inspirations came not from reading a scripture and declaring it inviolable, but by testing that inspired idea against the harsh winds of reality and the uncaring chisel of experimentation. Ideas had to be cast aside when they broke under these harrowing test, and a wise person should always be ready to toss away a long cherished idea if reason shows it to be naught but a dead weight.

In short, the secular movement just wants reasonable people in power, who will base decisions off of reasoned argument and not on blind faith. If that leader wishes to start action on a policy based on a proscription from the Bible, that is their personal right as guaranteed by the US Constitution and I doubt that a free thought advocate would fault a person their own thought process (Die Gedanken sind frei). However, if they wish to bring that policy to a law over people that do not find inspiration in the Bible, then they must bring it with an argument beyond "Because the Bible says it is so". The argument must be something that people of all and no religions can agree to and thus by its nature would be a secular reason for a policy inspired by a religious text. I am perfectly fine with this sort of thing. It is honestly all the secular movement is looking for in a leader... and wait... Barack Obama says just that in a speech to a Church no less.

As for the changing of people's attitudes on religion, the secular movement could care less who is in power when it comes to doing that. We will still work on that through writing, education, debate, and argument. Add besides, the movement for secularism is not just about the USA. It's about seeing rationality used to make decisions all across the world.

As long as I have to see articles like THIS, I can assure you, the Secular Movement and the outcry from the champions of Reason is far from over.

...or maybe Prop 8 doesn't

This news story is giving me a little hope for the next few days. Despite the current 400k vote lead in favor of Prop 8, there are still around 3M absentee ballots left to count AFTER the precincts are closed.

There may still be a chance for California to remain sane... despite the fact that other states this election decided to jump on the bigot-bandwagon.

Prop 8 passes in California

So now that marriage in California is only between one man and one woman, I think we need a clear definition of what defines a man and a woman.

To go simply by sexual organ expression, that leaves the door open on individuals with Mixed Gonadal Dysgenesis and Gonadal mosaicism. Since they express both sex organs what gender will they be considered when trying to marry? Will California set up their own Apartheid courts to determine whether a person with one of these conditions is male or female enough to be allowed to marry their partner?

Should we go by the functionality of said organs? Proponents like to push the idea that marriage is for children. Then that disqualified from marriage any sterile individuals, individuals with a vasectomy or tubal ligation, and post-menopausal individuals.

Should it be purely genetic? That seems to be an easy way. Two x-chromosomes is a woman and an x and a y chromosome is a man. This, however, disqualifies from marriage anyone with Turner Syndrome (X0, just one x, no paired sex chromosome) and leaves open the question on Klinefelter's syndrome (XXY, that has two X AND a y, it meets both criterion) and XXYY Syndrome (two X and two Y... once again can meet both). And then there are the mosaicism cases where an individual's body contains both XX, XY, or other combinations of chromosomes as found in 46XY/47XXY, 46XX/46XY, or 46XX/47XXY mosaic.

So let us get that definition set out soon, so we know who to deny the right to marry.

Election Day! |Citizen|<>1--1-|Vote|

Been a while here since I made a post, but I figured now is a good time.  I was out voting today at the Church that is my polling location (that in and of itself is a small issue for me).  This is about the only time of the year that you'll catch me in a church for something other than a wedding or a funeral.  I've got to say, they seemed to be keeping the religious material out of my face for the most part.  Sure, they had the bulletin board up showing their schedule of activities... but hey, I'm an atheist not a dick, I'm not going to demand the removal of all those stapled up sheets just so I can walk past... I really don't give a damn one way or another when your next youth retreat is.  The one thing I do ask is that you maybe take down the propaganda that is right next to the table that I pick up my voter's card at.  Right next to the table was a nice eye catchingly orange and red sign with the phrase "I will repent." in white letters (I'll get pictures up in a bit).  I find myself wondering why they felt the need to leave that sign up... right where I get the little smart card to make the voting machine work.

Oh, and they didn't miss the chance to do a little captive audience advertising.  The exit to the polling place had the usual plates of donuts and coffee pots... and the standard "Hey come join our little friendly church" fliers.  Huzzah!  I the polling place of my partner... a school.  That's the kind of place every poll should be, in a place of learning and not a place of unlearning.