A few weeks ago, I let you know about a dimwitted Christianist named Frosty Hardison in Washington state who got his panties in a wad when his daughter was shown Al Gore’s global warming documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, because “The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn’t in the DVD.” Yeah, dumb, I know.
Sadly, it’s not over, because the science teacher was disciplined for not alerting parents that their student would be viewing something ‘controversial’. Well, the good news is that there’s been a backlash…

Members of the school board say they have been bombarded by thousands of e-mails and phone calls, many of them hurtful and obscene, accusing them of scientific ignorance, pandering to religion and imposing prior restraint on free speech….

In public comments at the board meeting, several riled-up Federal Way residents argued that “An Inconvenient Truth” was, indeed, scientifically true and that saying otherwise is “deliberate obfuscation.”

These residents derisively compared the search for “balance” in the global-warming issue to decades of phony claims by cigarette companies about the lack of “proof” that smoking is harmful to human health.

Yep, it’s all about ‘balance’, I guess. Just look at those mountains of tangible evidence the Holocaust deniers use, right? Good luck on that one…

His daughter’s science teacher, meanwhile, said she is struggling to find authoritative articles to counter the information in the Gore documentary.

“The only thing I have found so far is an article in Newsweek called ‘The Cooling World,’ ” Walls said.

It was written 37 years ago.

I think it was Dawkins who said, ‘Every one is entitled to their own opinion. They’re not entitled to their own set of facts.’ This case is a classic example of how this man (Hardiman) should be publicly ridiculed  because of the crap he’s slinging. There’s no way around it. Meanwhile, say goodbye to the glaciers in the Alps.

I’ve mentioned it before. We constantly hear when parents got up in arms when their kids are taught science in school that contradicts their fairytale beliefs about what really happened. Ed Brayton, over at ‘Dispatches from the Cultural Wars’, when speaking of this ‘parents always know best’ phenomenon, nails it on the head:

But legal issues are not decided on what taxpayers like or dislike, nor should they be. If you put up for a vote what should be taught in public schools, the results would be frightening. And why should such a thing be put to a vote? Why would we give credence to someone to make a judgment on what ought to be taught in a science classroom if they know little or nothing about science? We don’t put medical diagnoses up for a vote of the public, nor do we take straw polls to decide what is wrong when our car doesn’t work, we defer to the judgment of those trained in medicine or auto mechanics because they have a far better chance of actually knowing what they’re talking about.

The same is true in matters of science or history or mathematics, which just like auto mechanics or medicine require a good deal of study and expertise in order to be understood. Asking the general public to decide what ought to be taught in a class in which the vast majority of them would have a vanishingly small chance of passing a mid-term exam is as absurd as asking the janitors at the hospital the best course of treatment for a herniated disk; they simply do not have the knowledge required to make an informed choice.

And so the battle rages on.

crossposted at Five Before Chaos.

I’m still recovering from the ’06 election, and it seems like ’08 has begun. Anyone else have that sinking feeling that we’re screwed?

My political life is full of memories of mediocrity… the first president I can remember was Gerald Ford, if that’s any indication. And even as a preteen and teenager, I remember the foul stench of inadequacy that came with the names… Mondale, Dukkakis, and more recently, Kerry. And much of the bad feelings often stemmed from ‘electability’, the actual chance of winning, regardless of the positions. And with the current crop of Dem candidates, my visceral reaction is, of course, framed in ‘electability’: ‘America isn’t ready for a black/woman/Latino President.’ ‘What the hell are Biden/Dodd smoking?’, etc.

But I’m slowly realizing that that is not the most productive way. Sure, when you’re backing a single digit candidate, like I did with Nader in ’96, it might be worth considering. But by and large, when we soley focus on electability, we end up with the unelectable crap we’ve had to deal with, who end up not getting elected, anyways.

We need to focus much more on positions and actions, not personalities. I’m going to use our two alleged ‘frontrunners’ for examples.

Sure, it’s great that a strong, confident woman such as Hilary is running. But wouldn’t it be nice if some a strong, confident progressive woman were running instead? We hear all of this bullshit about ‘frontrunner’ Hillary, yet for the life of me, I can’t think of a single, compelling reason to vote for her and  Republican-lite positions. Sure, the wingers love to frame her as extremely liberal, but I’ll be damned if I see ANY evidence of that. Her Senate career so far has been one of convenience, changing with the wind, appeasing the right wingers, and no sense of real conviction about anything. I never understood the Hillary-haters, but I’m even more baffled by the Hillary-lovers. No thanks.

The Obama thing bothers me as well, even moreso now that it seems like some of my liberal VT blog-brethren have gotten on the bandwagon. Sure, I understand the charisma. I would venture to say it’s the only reason that people put JFK and Reagan in the upper-tier of presidents… it’s not like their positions were all that great. Obama is a fresh face, and his multiracial roots are in many ways emblematic of our modern America. He’s smart, articulate and handsome. But here’s the million dollar question.. what qualifies him to be president, and more importantly (and I do not ask this in jest), what positions has he taken that would make a progressive/lefty vote for him?  His support of free-trade? That he thought the Repubs were right on welfare reform? Or should we just support him on the inspirational rhetoric alone?

Sure, Obama does exhude a very positive vibe. That’s great.I know a lot of ‘positive vibe’ peopele in VT, too, but I sure don’t want them running anything. He’s a nice guy. I don’t want him to be president. It’s great that he reaches out to Americans of all stripes, but ya’ know what? Some of them are just wrong, and we’ve accommodated them long enough. The politics of the ‘mushy middle’ and the ever-increasingly-irrelevant DLC have run their course, have let the GOP get away with numerous atrocities at home and abroad, and have made the word ‘liberal’ a dirty one. We deserve better.

Maybe John Edwards? Who knows, his populism seems a bit more genuine. Maybe Gore will throw his hat into the ring? We need a real politics of substance, not style, not rhetoric. Remember, Bush was the candidate more people wanted to ‘have a beer with’. How’s that beer tasting now? And don’t even get me started on the latest rumor that a Clinton/Obama ticket is a possibility. My stomach can only take so much.

Granted, as bad as our choices are on the left, the GOP has it even worse right now…Guiliani, who won’t go anywhere with the knuckle-dragging GOP red-state base, McCain, whose actions over the last year have completely demolished his ‘straight-talk’ image now has the anchor of Bush attached firmly to his genitals, Brownback, who won’t go anywhere OUTSIDE of the knuckle-dragging Jesus-is-coming-in-2007 base, Romney… what the hell is that guy’s deal… and so on. So yes, it’s just one small thing to take comfort in as the GOP continues down its path into the political wilderness for hopefully another generation. But, schadenfreude aside, that doesn’t matter.

What does matter is preventing another backslide like this country has had for the last 25-or-so years. And if we keep thinking that people like Hillary and Obama are the best we can do, we’re not going to move forward. WE deserve better. Demand better.

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I’ve been thinking about my blogging a lot lately. Sometimes I worry that I’m just too cranky. And lately I’ve thought about de-emphasizing the latest ‘Christofascist idiocy’ and all the other dumb things that the right-wingers and Christianists do to outrage sensible reality-based people on a daily basis. But it’s sooooooo hard. Like Al Pacino in The Godfather Part III: “Everytime I try to get out, they pull me back in.”, and so it goes. I don’t know why I keep doing it; their power is on the wane, their ridiculous ideology bound to be the used, discarded condom of history(yeah, I know, I’ve used that analogy before but it’s just so appropriate and rude). So, dear readers, I’m still going to try to squeeze in more lighter, positive fare. But not right now. From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

This week in Federal Way schools, it got a lot more inconvenient to show one of the top-grossing documentaries in U.S. history, the global-warming alert “An Inconvenient Truth.”

After a parent who supports the teaching of creationism and opposes sex education complained about the film, the Federal Way School Board on Tuesday placed what it labeled a moratorium on showing the film. The movie consists largely of a computer presentation by former Vice President Al Gore recounting scientists’ findings.

“Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He’s not a schoolteacher,” said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. “The information that’s being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. … The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn’t in the DVD.”

Yeesh, where to begin? The stupid hurts my eyes.  This guy is partially correct, however, in that if we don’t act on climate change soon, everything will ‘burn up’, in a manner of speaking.

School Board members adopted a three-point policy that says teachers who want to show the movie must ensure that a “credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented,” that they must get the OK of the principal and the superintendent, and that any teachers who have shown the film must now present an “opposing view.”

The requirement to represent another side follows district policy to represent both sides of a controversial issue, board President Ed Barney said.

Ok, fair enough, present an opposing view. Seems reasonable. But, unfortunately for ‘Frosty’, like in the evolution/ ‘intelligent design’ controversy, there’s pretty much a consensus in the scientific community in regards to global warming and its reality. Sure, there are a few ‘scientists’ out there that deny it, but more often than not, they usually are funded by think tanks and policy centers that get huge amounts of money from petrochemical companies. This notion of presenting an ‘opposing view’, no matter how ridiculous is truly one of the few weapons that makers of fringe claims still seem to use. I know you’ve probably heard it before, but by that (il)logic, when classes teach about the Holocaust, should they give equal time to holocaust deniers, as well? And don’t tell me it’s not the same thing, because it is.

( – promoted by odum)

I read something encouraging in today’s Times Argus.  The Vermont Legislature is proposing a tax on new homes built over 4,000 square feet. Be ready for the free-market whine brigade to start complaining:  Under the Senate version of the proposed law, those who put up new houses larger than 4,000 square feet would be charged unless their buildings were energy efficient.

A similar bill likely to be introduced soon in the House is even tougher. Fees assessed under that proposal on such large houses will go directly to a fund promoting renewable energy production in the state.

Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier, said he will introduce his House bill, which would impose a $1,000 per-square-foot surcharge on the construction of houses over 4,000 square feet.

“It’s meant to make people think about what they are doing,” said Klein, who added that to some extent all Vermonters underwrite the cost of energy and other impacts of large new homes. “When they build these homes, everybody in Vermont has to pay for it,” he said.

Of course, the builders associations are opposed:

“It’s just ridiculous. It’s just awful,” Joe Sinagra of the Homebuilders and Remodelers Association of Northern Vermont said of Klein’s proposal. “We have a housing crisis and you are adding an additional cost on housing.”

Of course, Sinagra fails to mention that the very real housing crisis in Vermont has to do with affordable housing, not second homeowners who can afford to build a second home over 4,000 square feet. As I look deep within my heart to try and find some compassion for them, it’s just not there. Sorry.

I support this strongly, especially on philosophical grounds; namely, there’s a huge contingency of Americans who seem oblivious to the idea of taking and using much more than necessary,  regardless of the impact it has on society and the planet. Maybe this will, as Klein said, ‘make people think about what they’re doing.’ Or not.

Crossposted at five before chaos and Daily Kos.

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I’m so glad that George Bush is committed to preserving the freedoms we Americans have, as he often likes to remind us, usually to the point of producing nausea at best, or sometimes violent diarrhea. In keeping with that tradition of reckless freedom-producing, he’s produced another one of those signing statements in the latest Postal bill that will give him sweeping new powers to open your mail without a warrant:

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a “signing statement” that declared his right to open people’s mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it…

Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court’s approval.

Yet in his statement Bush said he will “construe” an exception, “which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent … with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances.”

Bush cited as examples the need to “protect human life and safety against hazardous materials and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection.”

Now, I’m sure the conservative nutjobs will once again be okay with this, because, you know, if you’ve got nothing to hide, why would you care. But then again, since many of these people tend to be some of the most sexually repressed members of our society, aren’t they a little concerned about what the Prez might find in their mailbox?

Crossposted at five before chaos.

( – promoted by odum)

Although it still hasn’t crept fully into the public consciousness yet, there has been more talk of the idea of defunding the war as one of the only viable options in putting the brakes on it, even though Nancy Pelosi has seemingly dismissed the idea.

Peter Welch and Patrick Leahy have both come out now with the message that any surge escalation of troops can be countered with the defunding option:

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, is having discussions with other senators about legislation that would restrict the president’s use of the military. He said the “only way” a withdrawal would occur is through the budget process.

“I don’t know anyone who believes we’ll see an end to (the Iraq war) the way we’re doing it now,” he said in an interview. “It’s time to get out of there.”

“What will the president do? That’s the $64 million question,” said Congressman-elect Peter Welch, D-Vt.

“I would oppose adding troops,” Welch said in an interview. “And I would support steps to deny funding for adding more troops.”

If Leahy and Welch are serious, I think this is a step in the right direction. Let’s just say they pull it off, and it goes over well with the public. It suddenly doesn’t seem like such a far-fetched idea as a way to stop the war.

If it happens, it’s crucial that it is done in a way to insulate it from the expected ‘Dems don’t support the troops’ attack that will come from the right-wing noise machine. As I understand it, this could be done by continuing to fund personnel – and nothing else, no money for new operations, anything. The troops would be sitting around camp all day, but it’s a much better option than getting blown up. And it’s also very easy to counter by simply asking the Repubs how sending more troops to die is supporting them.

Brent Budowsky, who can write some pretty good stuff, seems to be drinking the Kool-Aid of delirious optimism:

1. Democrats should aspire to build a new era in American history of
patriotic reform and national renewal similar to the eras of FDR and JFK. By electing a Democratic President and Democratic Congress in 2008 we can inaugurate the next New Deal and New Frontier and we should think in large, idealistic terms.

2. 2007 will see the coming together of this growing alliance between Democratic leaders, national grassroots, the progressive blogs and progressive radio which will all flourish and support each other more than pundits predict. News and communications power will be further shifted from MSM to independent news sites.

This new alliance will empower voters, lift the party, widen the debate and attract political support and investment capital. The sites mentioned include Arianna and Huffington, Caro Kay and makethemaccountable, Mark Karlin and Buzzflash, Rob Kall and OpEd News and Bob Parry and consortiumnews among others.

3. The Democratic Party will regain its historic leadership on natonal security by expanding on its major gains in 2006 with Senators, Members of Congress, and candidates with military service addressing issues important to our troops, vets and mlitary communities.

What planet is Budowsky living on? Does he think this ‘new progressive era’ will be ushered in by a group that doesn’t even have the balls to call for impeachment, or more importantly, cutting off funding for the war, as Kucinich has suggested? Yes, from time to time I wonder if the pendulum has swung as far as it has to the right and we’re on the verge of some Third Progressive Era. Then I roll over and go back to sleep.

You can read more of JD Ryan at five before chaos. But why would you want to?

(It’s a JD day, apparently. Too much to think about in this NOT to front page it… – promoted by odum)

Trans-fats, or those in partially hydrogenated oils, have been in the news a lot lately. New York City has taken the bold move of banning them in restaurants and Massachusetts is considering a statewide ban. As usual, when things like this happen, we hear drivel like this:

Cities should respect local businesses and allow the free market to continue to adjust to consumer demand. Instituting a New York-style ban would needlessly shock the market, triggering higher costs for consumers and removing flexibility for restaurant owners.

Ah yes, the free-market, performer of more miracles than Jesus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It’s done a wonderful job with healthcare and affordable housing too, hasn’t it? Anyways, when public-health legislation like this pops up (such as smoking bans in public places), the free-market fundamentalists love to pile on with the ‘protecting us from ourselves’ argument, calls of the ‘food police’ and the inevitable ‘Big Brother’.  And sadly, a lot of people buy into this crap.

I’ve always been a believer in the premise that, by and large, many Americans often don’t do the right thing until we have no other choice. Many of us tend to be unable to grasp a ‘bigger picture’ in that we seem unable to grasp how our individual actions and choices affect the world around us. Unfortunately, because of the powerful industries pulling the governmental strings, the right thing doesn’t get much of a chance. Consider fuel mileage standards, for example. Every time legislation is introduced to mandate higher mileage standards, we get the typical argument from the auto industry about how  ‘the market’ is not calling for more fuel-efficient cars.  ‘People love their SUV’s, so they’re obviously not concerned about fuel efficiency’.

Know what? They are 100% right, many people don’t really give a damn. So, by that logic, the hell with global warming, mideast oil wars and such? That’s when the idea of the ‘common good’ needs to come into play. It blows my mind that, no matter what, the right of someone to make money always seems to trump my right to clean air and water or pristine wilderness or not having every corner of my mental environment cluttered with advertising.

Ok, so back to the trans-fat debate, and the common good. Truth: Americans are a bunch of fat-asses. Obesity is a major, serious health problem in this country. (disclaimer for the PC thought police: the author himself badly needs to drop twenty pounds – so said my dietician).The Center for Disease Control:

Overweight and obesity and their associated health problems have a  significant economic impact on the U.S. health care system (USDHHS, 2001).  Medical costs associated with overweight and obesity may involve direct  and indirect costs (Wolf and Colditz, 1998; Wolf, 1998). Direct medical  costs may include preventive, diagnostic, and treatment services related  to obesity. Indirect costs relate to morbidity and mortality costs.  Morbidity costs are defined as the value of income lost from decreased  productivity, restricted activity, absenteeism, and bed days. Mortality  costs are the value of future income lost by premature death.

According to a study of national costs attributed to both  overweight (BMI 25-29.9) and obesity (BMI greater than 30), medical  expenses accounted for 9.1 percent of total U.S. medical expenditures in  1998 and may have reached as high as $78.5 billion ($92.6 billion in 2002  dollars) (Finkelstein, Fiebelkorn, and Wang, 2003). Approximately half of  these costs were paid by Medicaid and Medicare.

If framed properly, even though it’s not going to convince all of the right-wingers (it’s really all about the money to them anyways- their profits, not our personal incomes ), it will shift the public perception of how those issues are framed, and hopefully we can make some progress. I thoroughly support people’s choices to engage in harmful behavior; I engage in it quite often myself.  But I don’t support having to pay for someone else’s poor choices, nor do I expect you to pay for mine. And the right-wingers seem to be all about rewarding what they see as good behavior (savvy investment choices, staying off welfare, abstaining from sex until marriage. whatever). Why shouldn’t they support this? Well, like I said, ultimately it’s about freedom, the freedom to make money. And although important, it needs to be kicked down a few notches on the ‘ladder of freedoms’, certainly below the rung of public health. They have controlled the debate for so long in this country that much of their bullshit is taken as conventional wisdom and to hell with the facts. It’s time for us to change that.

( – promoted by odum)

Another rainy-when-it-should-be-snowy Saturday, another linkdump for you.

More on the phony war:  No, it’s not Iraq, it’s that appearingly perennial ‘War On Christmas’ that the right wing doughy pantloads are  so fond of whining about:
A little background from Dan Radmacher at the Roanoke Times:

As Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus wrote last year during a similar outbreak of Yuletide battle fever, “There is an ugly, bullying aspect to this dispute, in which the pro-Christmas forces are not only asking, reasonably, that their religion be treated with equal status and respect but in which they are attacking legitimate efforts at inclusivity.”

[Bill] O’Reilly is not the first to allege a war on Christmas. An article last year on the anti-Fox News Web site News Hounds recalled that Henry Ford made the same allegation in his anti-Semitic tract, “The International Jew.”

It was also a favorite refrain of the John Birch Society in the late 1950s.

And of course, like their brethren in the Bush administration, the LA Times tells us that people are making a lot of money on their war:

The American Family Assn., a conservative activist group, has rung up more than $550,000 in sales of buttons and magnets stamped with the slogan “Merry Christmas: It’s Worth Saying.”

Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit law firm affiliated with the religious right, has taken in more than $300,000 with its Help Save Christmas Action Packs. The kits include two buttons, two bumper stickers and “The Memo that Saved Christmas,” a guide to defending overt religious expression, such as a Nativity scene in a public school classroom.

And of course, the incomparable Rude Pundit has his unique take on it here.

Some good Saturday editorial cartoons compiled by Bob Geiger here.

And finally, nothing to me shows the love of Jesus more than blowing off the head of non-believers with a high-powered rifle. Yes, the creators of the Wal-Mart bestselling ‘Left Behind’ series now have a video game, where you join the ‘Tribulation Force’ after the Rapture and kill all nonbelievers, including Muslims and United Nations troops. The only redeeming quality to the game is you can also play the antiChrist and dish out the same to the GodIdiots. Matt Taibbi has that as well as his take on the War on Christmas, here.

If you’re celebrating something this season, or not, have fun.

Crossposted at five before chaos.