Obama’s speech to the National Academies of Science

The president spoke to the NAS today, and he made some great promises: increases in funding for science and science education, an investment in training new teachers in science and math, a political commitment to get better advising in science untainted by ideology. He specifically promised 3% of the GDP to go to research in science and technology.

Listen to it in an NAS podcast, or read the transcript. It’s a good speech, except for the very last line, which was incredibly stupid…but I’ll overlook it as a mindless platitude.

Republican party platforms are always amusingly insane

ERV has just posted the Oklahoma GOP platform, and she’s right — any random amble through any piece of it will have you laughing at the audacity of wingnuttia. ERV singled out a piece endorsing the teaching of creationism in the classroom, but this is my favorite, just because they are two goals sitting right next to each other, and the Rethuglicans didn’t even notice the contradiction.

4. While the objective study of
philosophy and religion can be
beneficial, public schools should not
be endorsing any specific religion or
philosophy. We believe that students
and teachers should enjoy the right of
free exercise of religion.

5. We support posting the Ten
Commandments and our Nation’s
motto, “In God We Trust,” in all
public schools in recognition of our
religious heritage. U.S. citizens. We support teaching the
intent of our founding fathers, the
original founding documents, and the
difference between a democracy and a
republic.

So the public schools shouldn’t endorse any specific religion or philosophy, but they should be be posting the ten commandments? What, do they imagine that everyone, even atheists, recognizes the authority of Moses’ wacky religious proscriptions?

Making Florida highways that much more scenic

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Aren’t you looking forward to seeing a tortured corpse adorning cars in your neighborhood?

That hideous plate is one of the options railroaded through the Florida legislature.

Religious specialty plates offered by Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, and Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, made it onto a bill Friday even though many members had not seen images of those plates and none was produced for the debate.

Siplin didn’t mince words when asked what his “Trinity” plate looks like, saying, “It has a picture of my Lord and savior Jesus Christ.” It, along with a “Preserving the Past” plate offered by Siplin, would benefit the Toomey Foundation for the Natural Sciences.

Storms’ “I Believe” plate would benefit Faith in Teaching, an Orlando company that funds faith-based programs at schools. Its design features a cross over a stained-glass window.

It’s not just the hideous design and offensive obeisance to religion by the state…it’s that the money from these idols will be siphoned off to dubious organizations. “Faith in Teaching” is obviously non-secular; the Toomey Foundation might be a bit better, but I’m immediately suspicious of purported science organizations that plaster bible verses on all of their web pages.

Minnesota once again embarrassed by Michele Bachman

Michele Bachmann gave a science lecture to congress. As you might imagine, this was a grand spectacle of stupidity.

Just a few things that jumped out at me (I’m sure you can find more by listening carefully, but I could not bear to pay too much attention).

  • She repeats over and over that CO2 is a natural gas. Yes, we know…no one is claiming otherwise. (Also, what would an “unnatural” gas be, anyway?) Nitrogen is also a natural substance, it helps plants grow, and we produce perfectly natural nitrogenous materials from our bodies — so does that mean that we should stop sewer services and allow everyone to wallow in their poop?

  • She claims that not one study has ever been produced to show that CO2 is harmful, and she goes further to claim that CO2 is a harmless gas. We could correct that in just a few minutes: give me a large tank of CO2 and a small room containing Michele Bachmann, and we’ll give her a personal experience.

  • The atmosphere is 3% CO2? Is she really that ignorant? It’s more like 0.03%. And again, no one is arguing that CO2 is evil — it’s that its concentration has distinct effects on the temperature of the planet, and that concentration is changing.

I apologize, world. We’ll try harder to get this loon out of office at the next election. Until then, could you all either just ignore her, or point and laugh?

(via Mock, Paper, Scissors)

Bad joke, bad poll

This is an old, tired joke that has just been posted on the site of a right-wing moron’s radio show. I have heard it quite a few times before, usually by smug nitwits who think they’ve delivered a knock-out themselves.

A United States Marine was attending some college courses between assignments. He had completed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist and a member of the ACLU.

One day the professor shocked the class when he came in, looked to the ceiling, and flatly stated, “God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you exactly 15 minutes.”

The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop.

Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, ‘”Here I am God. I’m still waiting.” It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him, knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold.

The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently. The other students were shocked, stunned, and sat there looking on in silence.

The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, “What the heck is the matter with you? Why did you do that?”

The Marine calmly replied, “God was too busy today protecting American soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot. So, He sent me.”

I love this joke. It’s a perfect illustration of the problem of religion. Set aside the inane caricature of a college professor made by someone who has apparently never met one, and look at the ‘hero’, the Marine. There is no reason to believe he is actually on a mission from a god, other than that he claims it. And he has used this claim to justify violence. Isn’t this the way it always is?

Let’s revise the joke. Substitute “radio show host” for “college professor”, and in the opening paragraphs, describe him as reactionary patriot waving the flag for god and country and demanding that his god strike him down if sending men to war wasn’t a righteous cause. Then have the Marine’s actions play out in exactly the same way.

Still funny? Maybe funnier? Or do you still think the Marine should still be arrested for assault?

That’s why I like the joke. It reveals the ignorance of the people who tell it, and it says much about how much of religion is an exercise in rationalizing criminal behavior.

That site also has a poll attached to it. You can tell the man is an amoral jerk by the way it’s worded, too.

One of the terrorists who planned the 9/11 hijackings is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. While in CIA custody, newly released documents reflect that the Ron Jeremy-lookalike was waterboarded 183 times, far more than previously admitted to by government officials under the Bush Administration.

You Hear This Information and Think What?

Who freakin’ cares? He’s lucky we didn’t attach jumper cables to his nads.
84.62 %
It’s horrible, but we needed to do it to prevent further American deaths.
5.98 %
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others should be going to jail over this.
9.40 %

That our country has engaged in torture is one of the great shames of our generation; that we still have these thugs bragging about it is a continuing disgrace. Show them what you think—the people who find this behavior vile must speak up and act.

Don’t let the enablers of torture get away with it!

President Obama has released memos on the policies on prisoner interrogation under former President Bush. These are horrifying documents that expose the immorality of the previous administration. Unfortunately, Obama has not gone far enough: it’s a good start to reveal the truth, but what needs to be done next is to investigate the senior officials who advised the perpetrators that torture was legal.

That investigation should start with the lawyers who wrote these sickening memos, including John Yoo, who now teaches law in California; Steven Bradbury, who was job-hunting when we last heard; and Mr. Bybee, who holds the lifetime seat on the federal appeals court that Mr. Bush rewarded him with.

These memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. Congress should impeach him. And if the administration will not conduct a thorough investigation of these issues, then Congress has a constitutional duty to hold the executive branch accountable. If that means putting Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on the stand, even Dick Cheney, we are sure Americans can handle it.

After eight years without transparency or accountability, Mr. Obama promised the American people both. His decision to release these memos was another sign of his commitment to transparency. We are waiting to see an equal commitment to accountability.

We need to organize to bring these criminals to justice. You should sign petitions demanding the appointment of a special prosecutor, and demanding that California impeach Jay Bybee.

This is the least we can do, and I think even these petitions don’t go far enough: I want to see George W. Bush and Dick Cheney held accountable for their villainy. Start here, though, and bring the corrupt lawyers who made excuses for horror to trial.

Catholic geezers deny biology in Louisiana

Legislators in Louisiana are considering a bill to prohibit human-animal hybrids. We’ve been all over this subject before — it’s ridiculous and founded on complete incomprehension of what the research is all about. How ridiculous is it? SB 115 bans the “mixing of human and animal cells in a petri dish”!

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Guess who is pushing this ban? The Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops, a collection of professional ignoramuses, like this guy, Archbishop Alfred Hughes: old, white celibates with clerical collars and heads stuffed full of decaying dogma.

Look, Hughes, let’s face up to reality. You aren’t promoting this ban because you have any knowledge of the science; if you knew anything about the subject, you’d know that culturing cells of different species is common. Those cell lines to which George W Bush limited government-funded research? Many of them are grown on beds of mouse feeder cells. We could grow specific human cell lines on human feeder cells, but you’d freak out over that, too. There are gene mapping procedures that use fused rodent/human cells to produce cell lines with partial chromosomal losses. Monoclonal antibodies are made by combining immune system cells with immortalized cancer cell lines. And then there’s the ultimate miscegenation: bacterial cells made with copies of human genes, to make human gene products, like insulin. You look old enough that if you aren’t diabetic yourself, you probably have friends who are…and they’re shooting up the product of a human-non-human hybrid. Are you going to ban those next?

Let’s not pretend this is a decision based on morality, either. People are not harmed in the production of these hybrid cell lines, the work is biomedical in intent and produces knowledge and treatments that help people. The decrees of the Catholic church seem to have little to do with human values any more; they’re all about enforcing a rigid dogma and regimenting people, not in mutual cooperation to help one another, but instead to perpetuate your authoritarian hierarchy.

You aren’t promoting this silly because it’s good science or good morality: it’s simpler than that. You’re doing this because biology disgusts you. This isn’t unusual at all — many people are squeamish about the oozy, squishy, squirty, gooey, slimy, sloppy, messy wet business of what goes on beneath their skins. That it makes you feel icky is not grounds for demanding that others unburdened by that bias must follow your taboos. Your personal sense of revulsion is not an argument for your position.

Worse, this is a topic all tied up in your, umm, issues with sex. Your priesthood is just plain weird in its denial of a basic and healthy human urge and its obsession with regulating the private behavior of others. You are not normal. You are the wrong people to be taking on the responsibility of dictating anything about human sexuality — you’re just too far out on the fringe of perversity. There are a lot of weird sexual practices out there, but I’m afraid denial and repression and the kind of self-loathing that characterizes the professional celibates of the Catholic church are among the weirdest. That doesn’t mean you have to stop, of course — your kinks are your kinks, and I will defend your right to not do whatever you want in the privacy of your bedroom — but you have to realize that in the face of the riotous diversity of human sexual behavior, no one gets to use their personal preferences to instruct others on what they may do in private and between mutually consenting adults.

And that includes using a little polyethylene glycol on an assortment of cells in a dish to encourage a bit of fusion. As long as no aware, autonomous individuals are slithering out of the dish, you don’t get to argue that it is wicked and hurting people.

You’re being a sour old prude trying to impose your quaint morality on situations in which you are probably among the least qualified people on the planet to judge, and I have no sympathy with your position at all. But I’ll make you a deal. If you grim old white male virgins leave sex and science alone, I won’t suggest that your sexual pathologies could be treated with regular exposure to the soft and slippery bits of living, squirming human women (or, if you prefer, the flesh and fluids of human men)…you know, all that biology you deny. Even if it would be good for you.

No shout out for Jes at that speech

Obama is going to rouse the ire of the religious right yet further: he wisely opted not to endorse Jesus while giving a speech on economics by having a Christian symbol on the lectern covered up while he spoke. Good move, I think — let’s not get secular economic decision making all muddled up with Catholicism.

Amidst all of the American flags and presidential seals, there was something missing when President Barack Obama gave an economic speech at Georgetown University this week — Jesus.

The White House asked Georgetown to cover a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name in Gaston Hall, which Obama used for his speech, according to CNSNews.com.

The gold “IHS” monogram inscribed on a pediment in the hall was covered over by a piece of black-painted plywood, and remained covered over the next day, CNSNews.com reported.

As even us Lutherans learned, once upon a time, IHS is just the transliterated first three letters of Jesus’ name — IHΣOYΣ — which always struck me as weirdly informal. They call their god “Jes”? Can we get really casual and call him “Jezzy baby”, too?

Anyway, of course there is a poll, and of course the irate believers are peeved that our president didn’t stand up behind good ol’ Jes and talk about the bailout. Maybe some other real Americans should also make their voices heard…

Do you support Georgetown’s decision to agree to cover up religious symbols at President Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday?

28%
Yes
72%
No

Say…isn’t this called treason?

The governor of Texas is ranting about seceding from the United States.

Speaking to an energetic and angry tea party crowd in Austin Wednesday evening, the Lone Star State governor suggested secession may happen in the future should the federal government not change its fiscal polices.

“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.”

I seem to recall from my history books that some states tried that, once upon a time, long, long ago. How did that work out?

I also seem to recall from not too long ago that Republicans were rather free in slinging accusations of treason at Democrats (Ann Coulter wrote a book about it, and Jonah Goldberg tried to imply it), yet here is a governor actively inciting mobs with the idea of secession, which is a rather blatantly anti-patriotic act. Funny how their attitudes change.

Oh, and for comic relief: Chuck Norris offers to run for president of the independent nation of Texas. I’m almost tempted to agree that they should leave the union, just for the hilarious spectacle.