Judge rules First Amendment not so important.

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Thursday May 26, 2005 · 8:50 PM PDT

2005/05/26 · 20:50

[Cross-posted at Los Punditos]

A Marion County, Indiana superior court judge has ruled that two parents cannot teach their child their religion. Such a ruling must be in a very dire case indeed, right? Only in a case where the parents sacrifice the blood of puppies and eat the heads off birds to their horrible, heathen gods while fellating each other in front of their children would a judge decide that the First Amendment's protection of the right to worship doesn't mean bupkis. Alas, no. The horrible, evil religion in question is Wicca, a pagan religion that emphasizes balance with nature. Read More

David Gelertner makes my brain bleed.

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Monday May 16, 2005 · 8:50 PM PDT

2005/05/16 · 20:50

David Gelertner's latest op-ed in the Los Angeles Times ("Let's Get Rid of Public Schools," May 13, 2005) serves to cement his place as the mental midget of conservative letters. I am drawn to his writings not as a moth to a flame but rather as a gawker to a freeway car crash; As the esteemed Milhouse van Houten said on The Simpsons, "I fear to watch, and yet I cannot look away!" This new piece really takes the dumbstick cookie. His essential point is that it is time for public education to fade away as an institution, to be replaced by (theoretically) superior privately run schools. The entrepreunerial educational system, he says, will be better because they will cater to the whim of the market (in this case, the parents of the children they are educating). Read More

Iraq war expenditure bill passes in Senate

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Tuesday May 10, 2005 · 10:55 PM PDT

2005/05/10 · 22:55

The Iraq war supplemental spending bill passed the Senate. The bill has the Real ID Act attached to it as a rider.

The bill passed by the whopping margin of 100-0.

Goddammit. We're now one step closer to being asked "Where are your papers, citizen?"

Hat tip to Slashdot for the news.

-Jim

Running back to the primordial ooze

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Monday May 09, 2005 · 11:28 AM PDT

2005/05/09 · 11:28

I wish I could say that we weren't in Kansas anymore, Toto, but the real problem of the matter is that we are. The State Board of Education in Topeka has been holding a rash of hearings on new standards for the teaching of evolution in science class. Today was their third consecutive hearing, and the final day is scheduled for Thursday the 12th of May. The stalwarts of Kansas' science community have been boycotting the hearings in protest of the conservative subcommittee's pro-creationism bent. I can't tell you enough how much of a mistake I think this is.

It's a mistake because there are scientists standing in front of the subcommittee telling them that they believe in a creator and this gives the illusion of scientific legitimacy to the entire proceeding. That other scientists are not standing up in these hearings to state otherwise leaves a lone and brave lawyer to fight in favor of the proposed evolution-friendly guidelines. Throw in the fact that at least two of the subcommittee members have admitted to not doing more than glancing at the proposed guidelines, and it becomes a real problem. Read More

Purge the blasted sodomites!

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Friday May 06, 2005 · 2:44 PM PDT

2005/05/06 · 14:44

I know that the Bush presidency has brought back this odious nostalgia for the Reagan years among conservatives, but this is ridiculous.

I refer you to the FDA's new rules on sperm donation. The new FDA rule states that any man who has engaged in homosexual activity - they probably mean sodomy and oral sex, but those of you out there giving hand jobs and kissing boys had better not try either - within the last five years, whether protected or not, may not donate sperm to sperm banks. Period.

Obstensibly, this rule is intended to lower the chance of transmitting HIV via donor sperm. I say obstensibly because the rule is full of shit and scientists should know better. The idea that HIV/AIDS was the "gay plague" went out with the links between Satanic cults and dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) in the early nineties. Until the last year or so, HIV infections were down among homosexuals and up among heterosexuals. The recent scare of increasing HIV transmission among homosexual men is probably what inspired this disgusting piece of pseudo-scientific policy.
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Wild West Palm Beach

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Tuesday May 03, 2005 · 8:39 PM PDT

2005/05/03 · 20:39

Welcome to another installment in our irregular series "What the hell's wrong with ____?" Today, we ask the question "What the hell is going on in Florida?"

Florida, it appears, is not done being the embarassing vestigial stump end of our great Republic. Never you mind the disgusting display of party-line pandering that was the 2000 Election. Just ignore the recent salubriousness that was and continues to be the entire state's intrusion in to one family's conflict over a husband's right to be his wife's advocate. Now, we have something even more ridiculous to shake our heads at. Read More

A conversation about religion

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Saturday April 30, 2005 · 10:54 PM PDT

2005/04/30 · 22:54

I started having the following conversation about religion with my good friend Josh. We're both atheists, he raised a Jew, I raised a Protestant. Josh is, however, perhaps the most moral person I know.

This was more in the way of random neuron-firings that I hope will spark something of a discussion. You can see my diary on Moral relativism to see where some of these thoughts have been coming from.

Read on, contribute your thoughts, please. Or not. Either way, have a good night.

-Jim Read More

David Gelertner is a douche

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Saturday April 30, 2005 · 10:50 PM PDT

2005/04/30 · 22:50

Heard of this guy? He's a professor of computer science at Yale. Apparently, he also considers himself to be a Voice of the Conservative Revolution. He's been published about once a week in the Los Angeles Times for about a month now, and his writing is so terrible. Well, on Friday, after reading his column I literally flipped my lid and sent off a letter to the Editors.

I copied my good friend Josh on it, and the following conversation ensued: Read More

The ugly truth of Bush's Social Security Reform

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Friday April 29, 2005 · 6:19 PM PDT

2005/04/29 · 18:19

Just how progressive is Bush's "progressive indexing?" Well, being based on the Pozen Plan, if you're dirt poor, it's pretty freaking progressive. If you make more than about $20K annually, be prepared to take a hit.

Don't believe me?

Go here to find out:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006210.php

Thanks to Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly for this. And thanks to my friend Josh for sending it to me.

-Jim

Relativism: The moral choice.

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Wednesday April 27, 2005 · 10:36 PM PDT

2005/04/27 · 22:36

Moral relativism is one of the Far Right's favorite targets for castigation. They decry its very existence as the antithesis of their form of morality. Without religion, they contend, there can be no morality. Religion is a form of moral absolutism. As the very name implies, moral absolutism is dogmatic, descending from truths that are immortal and immutable. Relativism is not based on absolutes; rather, it descends from the one thing absolutists are taught not to trust: human judgment. Moral relativism requires critical thought and self-awareness. It is the thinking man's morality, and, because of this, cannot be grounded in unerasable axioms. For all this, moral relativism is the only honest kind of morality. What's more, even the absolutists practice it. Read More

We are governed by death cultists.

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Tuesday April 26, 2005 · 9:06 PM PDT

2005/04/26 · 21:06

We live in a nation ruled by death cultists. A bit harsh, you say? Well it's true. An evangelical Christian fundamentalist is nothing more than a death cultist with a really good public image and the weight of history to add a veneer of legitimacy.