One law for all

The report takes a little too much glee at poking at the JREF, but it does seem fair: Broward County is cracking down on tax exemptions for non-profits, including the JREF and churches. If they have undeveloped or unused property, property that isn’t being used for a charitable function, they are being told to pay taxes on it.

They lead with the example of the JREF, which has an unused million dollar building up for sale, and they seem to have ambushed Randi about it (I don’t think he’s much involved with the business of the JREF, so he was the wrong person to talk to). They owe about $23,000. At the end of the video, they finally mention that the JREF has paid up about $21,000.

What I find most promising though, is that they also mention going after churches — just on their unused property so far. But they make much of the fact that these exemptions are costing the people money, and that they are going to be much more thorough in auditing tax exempt institutions, which is a good thing.

One can only hope that they eventually get around to rethinking the charitable purpose of sitting around in pews getting hectored by a priest, and start yanking tax exemptions from churches wholesale.

Oh, no, I’ve been doing blogging wrong!

You know, Al Franken is my senator. I voted for him (and far more happily than I did voting for Obama), and I’ve said a few good words about him here. But does he invited me to dinner? Does he ask me to join him out on the shootin’ range? Does he call? Does one of his assistants ever call? No. No politician ever comes a-courtin’.

He does have a very nice beard.

He does have a very nice beard.

I wasn’t feeling snubbed until I heard about Robbie Cooper. Who? He’s a small-time blogger in Austin, and recently Texas Republicans Greg Abbott, Rick Perry, David Dewhurst, and Ken Paxton have invited him in for conversations. See? The Republicans know how to treat their people!

Now, you might be saying to yourself, “But, Myers, you’re a crappy blogger who alienates everyone, it’s no wonder you have no friends in high places.” And, well, that’s true, but that doesn’t stop the Republicans from befriending Robbie Cooper, who is a racist jerk.

Robbie Cooper is very concerned about “The Blacks”, or as he prefers to call them, “The Niggers”.

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Really? I checked out his awful blog, and you get the flavor pretty quickly. He’s obsessed with roving gangs of urban black teenagers running around beating up innocent white people — it seems to be his major theme, that The Blacks are out of control, and Good White People need to get a concealed handgun license so they can shoot them when they get too close. He favorably cites John Derbyshire’s racist advice and condemns places like Philadelphia as “shitholes” because they’re full of urban thugs running rampant and hunting white people. I lived in Philadelphia for many years; I worked in North Philadelphia and walked in black neighborhoods there; the only times I’ve ever been shot at were by a white prostitute in Seattle (I was an innocent bystander in the line of fire when when she opened fire on someone else), and by a good ol’ boy in the farm country east of the Cascades who decided it would be hilarious to open fire with a hunting rifle on some hikers. I’d feel safer in North Philly than I would in rural Texas…and admittedly, part of that is bias, from reading blustering, quick-on-the-trigger bully boys like Cooper.

His other topics seem to be how much he despises liberals, gays, liberals, illegal immigrants, liberals, public schools, liberals, feminists, liberals, and anyone who isn’t white. And that was from just scanning the front page, no need to dig into his archives.

And he’s still called in for chummy little gatherings with Texas Republicans.

So that’s the formula for becoming a politically influential blogger? Write more racist screeds, brag about my guns, become a Republican, and live in Texas? Dang. I can’t do any of those things.

And somehow, I don’t think Al Franken would want to be my friend if I were to do them.

So that’s how religious fantasies directly harm people…

The child-raping and the beheadings get all the headlines, but meanwhile, the machinery of faith keeps clawing at the foundation of society in subtler ways as well — it’s a free-wheeling parasitic scam, an infection that our social immune system is conditioned to tolerate. Answers in Genesis is a beautiful example. They have millions of dollars that they funnel into lying to people and corrupting education, and ultimately, they really are just a grand scam for leaching money out of their environment. I mentioned that they’re selling junk bonds to expand their operations, and that their ridiculous Ark Park is a boondoggle retreating into the distance as they continually promise and fail. Americans United describes their other tactic: hoodwinking secular government into propping up their depradations.

The latest ploy comes courtesy of the city of Williamstown, which is not far from Cincinnati. The town already gave the overtly religious park a 75 percent property tax break, and Bloomberg News reported this week that the city plans to sell $62 million in municipal bonds in December for AiG affiliates. This means the city is actively taking on quite a bit of debt for the sole purpose of funding the Ark Park.

And by “the city”, of course, what they mean are the citizens and businesses of Williamstown, who are being robbed of massive sums of money to support that con man, Ken Ham.

The article also mentions that AiG has received $40 million plus in tax incentives from the state…for a proposal that has only managed to get somewhere around $4 million in donations. That’s a whole lot of huffing and puffing to inflate the lead balloon of the Ark Park. Further, they’re sinking $2 million into improving a road to nowhere, the proposed Ark Park site.

But let’s step back a bit. This isn’t just a sinkhole into which the state of Kentucky proposes to throw money — even if it were to “succeed” as a tourist attraction, the existence of a state-subsidized monument to anti-scientific idiocy ought to be an embarrassment and an impediment to the status of the region. The state of Kentucky and the city of Williamstown seem to be happily shooting themselves over this deal…all because it’s in the name of faith and piety and god.

Simple answers for stupid people

Richard Cohen, one of the dumber conservatives to have a cushy job as a pundit, comments on the Republican Party.

Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all.

Pro-tip: if you find yourself gagging at the thought of interracial marriage, you are racist. You are so racist you are choking on your own racism.

Bonus! If you find yourself uncomfortable with the thought that someone’s partner might have once had a same-sex relationship, you’re also homophobic!

That’s the state of America’s Republicans: racist and homophobic and so stupid that they don’t even realize it.

You want a useful roundup of Cohen’s past idiocies? You got it. It leaves out the time he told a young girl she didn’t need algebra, though.

Aww, Cohen’s feelings are hurt because everyone is calling him a racist. His defense? It’s because he’s a liberal.

Cohen has been criticized for his comments on race in the past. When asked why he thought it was that he keeps getting caught up in racially charged arguments, he said that its because people view him as a liberal and find some of his positions unconventional. "Every once in a while I take an unconventional stance as a liberal — as someone who has always been called a liberal," he said. "If someone on the right wrote this, no one would care. No one would make a big deal about it but because I veer every once in awhile from orthodoxy, or maybe more than once in awhile, I get plastered this way."

Fuck him. Go read Ta-Nehisi Coates instead.

Step back, and look at this violent planet

My last article triggered a great deal of furious response. Some of it was outrageously stupid: this one, in particular, is the frontrunner for blithering idiocy.

Sometimes I wonder if PZ Myers is capable of empathy at all. This anti-war message, coming ironically from someone who has essentially declared war on others to promote his own values, is more insulting to veterans than to decision-makers, all the while dressing itself as morally righteous.

You don’t need to be pro-war to be pro-veterans, but it is especially abhorrent to chastise others for fighting for what they value when you insist that anyone who doesn’t fight for what YOU value is the enemy.

Right. Because what I do when I disagree with someone is conscript an army of riflemen and shoot them, followed by blowing up their house and bankrupting their country. But let me ignore the truly stupid comments, of which there were so many, and talk a bit about the one rather more intelligent rebuttal.

This is the argument of the form, “What about Nazi Germany, and the atrocities they were committing?” Another good example is “What about the Confederate States and slavery?” And I have to agree — the world is an uncoordinated, tragically short-sighted mess, and all too often we let horrendous circumstances accumulate until suddenly we’re confronted with a situation so dire that only violence can resolve it. We could not let genocide continue or slavery to persist, and we let the problems smolder until we reached a breaking point. My argument is not that we should have laid down our arms and let Jews be murdered or blacks languish in servitude, but that in every case war is a belated and expensive solution, and always a mistake. Sometimes we’re stuck with going to war, because we are stupid. Because we often lack the international tools to stop destructive behavior any other way.

Another point: it’s easy to damn the CSA and the Nazis. Are Americans as willing to recognize the evil violence we perpetrate? If we agree that it was acceptable for us to use violence to stop the Holocaust or slavery, are we also willing to concede that therefore it is acceptable for others to use violence against us, to stop the drones, to end our nuclear threat, to stop our meddling in other countries? I don’t think so, and at least I’m consistent in saying that violence doesn’t solve the problem. How are you going to justify other wars, where good and evil are not so clear? Was the Vietnam War a just war? The Franco-Prussian War? The Thirty Years War? The Peloponnesian War?

And finally, step back and back and back. Take a human perspective for a change, rather than a nationalistic one.

We sent young men, little more than boys, to slaughter other young men in Europe and in the South. Did the German soldiers have mothers? Did the Southerners? Did most of them go to war telling themselves they must preserve the right to murder Jews or blacks? Most of them, on both sides, were doing what they thought they must to defend the homeland, to promote their way of life, and to be men of honor. On both sides. Both sides were absolutely convinced that they were in the right, and so we had two large masses of people flailing viciously at each other until one side or the other collapsed in submission, and I’m sorry, victory was not determined by who was right, who was fairer to humanity, who had the most noble values. It was a contest where right was determined by bloody, brutal might.

How can you say that the soldiers of one side deserve honor and the other does not? And if you’re going to claim that both deserve respect, than what a bloody stupid flailing exercise in futility war is.

You can obviously state that there is a difference in cause: fighting for the right to enslave or kill some of your own citizens, or to enslave or kill your neighbors, is clearly an unethical, even evil, goal. But you do not persuade people to live ethical lives by killing them, or shooting their neighbors. We do not seek to convince people at gunpoint, but only to stop them from carrying out criminal action. And unless you are prepared to police the planet with a gun, that is not a satisfactory solution — a lasting peace can only come from a long-term effort at education and equality, not a burst of gunfire.

But if you’re going to equate education and argument with gunfire and militarism, well then, we’re back to the idiot I quoted at the beginning.

Other good perspectives: Ta-Nehisi Coates pointing out the Civil War was just one flash point in a long smoldering human failure. And good god, read about the Battle of the Somme. There is no moral justification for that slaughter.

Who deserves honor?

Today is the day when nations around the world pause to celebrate their most colossal failures, the events that killed the greatest numbers of their citizens, that broke and crippled their men after they’d been intentionally trained to dehumanize other human beings. We love to take our young people, especially our young men and boys, and grind them up in bloody battles, and then once a year we remind ourselves of what we do, and we congratulate people for it. Dulce et decorum est pro fucking patria mori and all that.

Meanwhile, our veterans hospitals are crumbling (and desperately needed) and we talk about more wars with Iran or whoever crossed us most recently, and doesn’t have nuclear weapons with which to smack us back. But we’ll go to all the effort of saying “Thanks, gramps” to people who suffered in terror and terrified other sufferers right back. All so a few people can get richer, and so politicians can thump their chests and claim to be braver than other politicians.

I think the only way to honor veterans of war is to make sure there are no more veterans. They are not heroes, but victims. There is nothing brave or heroic about picking up a gun and threatening to kill someone for a matter of principle, or even worse, because someone else is ordering you to do so — and the repercussions of celebrating violence tear our society apart.

For example, four women in Dallas met for their state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America — a quiet lunch in a local restaurant. Texas gun advocates got word of the meeting, and gathered in the parking lot outside.

violentmen

Brave heroes, all. In what world could such a gathering, intending to intimidate unarmed mothers, occur without the men involved withering in shame and guilt? Our world, obviously, where righteous terror with weapons in hand is celebrated. Perhaps these men will meet again in years to come, to remember the honor of being among the heroes who drew their weapons in the parking lot of the Blue Mesa Grill in 2013.

Just like right now, we honor those who carried arms against the young men of other countries, where right now, citizens honor those who carried arms to resist our young men. When are we going to wake up and realize that this is all madness, that it’s not a point of pride to be trained to kill, that we gain nothing and lose all when we settle disagreements with threats of lethal force.

How can we stop? Perhaps it would help to celebrate the right heroes.

I was horrified by this story of the Nazi scientific enterprise. The Nazi regime killed millions, members of despised ethnic groups, gays, and political dissidents, and some of their bodies were appropriated by the science establishment for medical studies. As the article reveals, sometimes scientists would go out to the prisons and mark certain individuals as desirable for their research; one, for instance, wanted to study the effects of stress on the menstrual cycle, so young women in a state of terror for their lives were particularly desirable (these are the studies our Republicans now cite when they want to claim that raped women don’t get pregnant!). It’s a terrible tale of scientists closing their eyes to the consequences of their work, and worse, actively participating in murder.

It tells of a young couple, Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen, who worked for the resistance against the Nazis, were caught and executed, he by hanging, she by the guillotine, and their bodies ended up on the anatomy table. Charlotte Pommer, a medical school graduate working as an assistant in the Institute of Anatomy, walked in to the lab to work and recognized the bodies waiting for her.

“I was paralyzed,” Pommer later wrote of the sight of the bodies. “I could hardly perform my task as an assistant to Professor Stieve, who did his scientific study as always with the greatest diligence. I could barely follow.”

Pommer was 28. Libertas Schulze-Boysen was 29 when she died. In her last letter to her mother, she said she’d asked for her body to go to her family. “Don’t fret about things that possibly could have been done, this or the other,” she wrote. “If you can, bury me in a beautiful place amid sunny nature.”

Pommer stopped working for Stieve—and left the field of anatomy—because of what she saw that day in his laboratory. She went on to help resist the Nazis herself, by hiding the child of a man who participated in the “July Plot” to assassinate Hitler in 1944. In the spring of 1945, just before the war’s end, Pommer was herself sent to prison.

So on this Veterans Day, I choose to honor the conscientious objectors and the Charlotte Pommers of the world, rather than the participants in war. They are the real heroes, the ones who made the greatest sacrifices to better humanity.

Meanwhile, look at what the media find important today: the poppy on Google UK’s search page isn’t big enough. But Bing puts a big photo of a poppy on their search page. Jesus fuck, millions dead in wasteful war and the big issue today is whether a photo of a flower is big enough to honor them properly.

I’ll tell you the answer: no, it isn’t.

I thought they claimed to be the small government party

Now, in addition to controlling who you are allowed to have sex with and how long you are supposed to be pregnant, the Republicans want to make sure science goals are short term and in the “national interest”.

Key members of the US House of Representatives are calling for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to justify every grant it awards as being in the “national interest”. The proposal, which is included in a draft bill from the Republican-led House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology that was obtained by Nature, would force the NSF to document how its basic-science grants benefit the country.

Yeah, OK, so how does working out the interactions in the hedgehog signaling pathway “benefit the country”? How does measuring the lipid composition of neurons in the substantia nigra “benefit the country”? How does documenting the identity of waxes on the abdomens of fruit flies “benefit the country”? Shall we just stop all research that doesn’t make a profit, doesn’t improve the range of cruise missiles, and doesn’t directly improve heart disease treatments for sclerotic old conservatives?

This is a first step in imposing a patriotism requirement on science…and a first step in killing the enterprise altogether.

It’s also terrifying that judging the worth of science is being put in the hands of Republicans — the know-nothing party of ignorant Jebus-lovin’ buffoons. (It would also be terrifying to see it under the thumbs of the credulous new-agey clowns in the other party — how about keeping science apolitical?)

Virginia done good

It looks like that kook Cuccinelli is losing.

Bad news to wake up to: Chris Christie won handily. He’s cocky far-right wing conservative with anger management issues, who yells at teachers. He’s now probably the Republican front-runner for the next presidential election, so we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this blowhard now.

Good news to wake up to: Bill de Blasio is mayor of New York. Our new mayor of Minneapolis is a Democrat, and a woman: Betsy Hodges. Minneapolis also has a new city council member, Abdi Warsame, who is now the highest elected Somali official in the US. By the way, our mayoral election used ranked choice voting, which I rather like, and would love to see in place for our presidential elections, except that our countries religious devotion to a gang of white male slaveholders in the 18th century colonies means we’ll never get out of the 1780s on that issue.

And most importantly, Illinois joins Minnesota in the 21st century by passing legislation to allow gay marriage.

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I’ve got a bit of headache and general ickiness this morning, and even though that image kind of sears my eyes, I still like seeing it.

I’d dismissed the problems with Obamacare enrollment…until now

I know it seems to be the comedy routine du jour to mock the software glitches plaguing the new health care program rollout. I hadn’t worried about it: I’d heard nothing but encouraging words about the program itself, and putting together a huge web service for the entire country is a gigantic undertaking, and I could imagine lots of ways it would run into problems, problems that would eventually shake out. I remember when we first fired up FtB, and saw it buckle under the traffic immediately!

But then I saw what the Oregon state health exchange website put up.

Oregon health exchange requires Microsoft Internet Explorer!

Holy hell. Who designed this abomination? It’s 2013, and they’re requiring users to access the site with Microsoft Explorer? And the submit button doesn’t work on any other browser?

I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist, but this is so ridiculous and such bad design that I’m thinking sabotage.

The libertarian mindset on proud display

I hope you aren’t working on dinner right now, because watching John Stossel and Steve Doocy flaunt their inability to empathize with anyone but their own selfish interests will cause you to lose it.

Stossel is outraged that he has to pay the same insurance premiums as a woman — they go to the doctor more! It’s not as if regular checkups might actually reduce health care costs, you know — he’s saving money by skipping on the maintenance and waiting for the catastrophic disaster.

As for smug little twit Doocy: “I’m in my 60s. Why should I pay for your maternity care?”

Hey, I’m in my 50s, why should I subsidize your greater health care needs, old man? My kids are in their 20s, they shouldn’t have to pay for any insurance, ’cause they’re healthy and young!

Maybe because someday I, and they, will be in our 60s, too. And maybe somebody Doocy loves will need maternity care (oh, wait, no, that can’t be can it? These are Fox News goons, they can’t possibly love a woman, ever.)

Stossel, by the way, is 66. Why the hell is he still employed, still insured, still supported by anyone? Isn’t it way past time for society to stop subsidizing the old geezer, shuffling him off to pasture so young people can move up?

Or is it possible that a responsible society values all of its members and gives them all lifelong equal citizenship?