Tighten Those Wingnuts

Just when you thought those wingnuts Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum couldn't get their wingnuttery screwed on any tighter, they double down with split ring washers and flatten them with pneumatic tools.

It’s called “The Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family,” and Vander Plaats announced that candidates who refuse to sign the pledge won’t even be considered for an endorsement. Given Vander Plaats’ sway among right-wing activists in Iowa — his group, The Family Leader, is a conservative power in the state — this will no doubt get GOP candidates’ attention.

So, what is in this lovely pledge that Vander Plaats is asking GOP candidates to sign?  Well, you can read it for yourself.

Basically, it asks the candidates to be faithful to their spouse (Sorry Gingrich).  It implies that a child born into slavery was "more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA‟s first African-American President."  Be completely and totally anti-gay and anti-porn.  And, asks them to be against "Sharia Islam."

The anti-Sharia movement has been very interesting to watch amongst the Religious Right.  They are basically claiming that Sharia law has crept in and is taking over our legal system.  What is ironic about this is that Sharia law is not very different than what some of these crazy evangelicals want to impose as part of their vision of an American Theocracy.  I mean, Sharia is a serious threat isn't it?  Hardly.  Less than 2% of the entire US Population consider themselves Muslim.  Many of them are very moderate in their views.  The thought that such a minority voting block could somehow manage to take over the US Legal System when the Religious Right has been trying to do that for decades (with some success) is asinine, but such is the fear and hate mongering of the Ring Wing Christians.

Sharia is also anti-gay and anti-porn, so there seems to be a bit of a conflict of interest there.

The always insightful Steve Benen has his take on this at is blog Political Animal.

Update [7/11/2011]  The Family Leader group that published the vow and retracted the slavery came with the following comment:

“After careful deliberation and wise insight and input from valued colleagues we deeply respect, we agree that the statement referencing children born into slavery can be misconstrued,” said Julie Summa, a spokeswoman for the Family Leader. “We sincerely apologize for any negative feelings this has caused, and have removed the language from the vow.”

So, it's not really an apology.  They were just concerned that others would "misconstrue" what they were saying.  Utter bullshit if you ask me.  Besides, that doesn't change the fact that Bachmann and Santorum still signed it with the original language.

Republican Sabotage of the Economy

Ever since Obama took office, major Republicans said quite openly and aggressively that they hoped Obama would fail.  From that day forward, they have been the most obstructionist group of politicians in many years.  Now that they have gotten control of the House, they are successfully implementing their plan of complete and utter economic failure.  Republicans keep asking where the jobs are, but they utterly fail to understand that jobs requires economic growth, which usually requires government stimulus.  The Republican theory is that companies won't hire because they are concerned about our debt.  So, what do they do, they hijack the debt ceiling as if that is something that controls our debt.  It doesn't.  The debt ceiling allows us to pay back our existing debt.  This is money that the government has already spent and is not tied to future spending.  By leaving elements of our economy doubting whether or not the US will meet its financial obligations is preventing job growth.  So, the Republicans have successfully managed to manufacture the necessary fear to make it appear Obama is failing, when it reality, history has shown that increase in spending to generate economic growth will do far more to reduce the future deficit by increasing revenue.

Steve Benen has a great blog post this morning on just this thing and has been advocating the position that the Republicans have no interest in seeing the economy improve prior to next year's election.

There other maddening thing the Republicans are doing is their insistence on no revenue increases.  Here is a chart that shows Reagan, of all people, proposed a deal that was 75% revenue increases.  Recent history does show that tax increases has actually spurred economic growth and that tax cuts, especially the Bush tax cut from 2001 does not provide the magic fairy dust trickle down economics that they think it does.

The Republicans are fucking with us in the worst possible way.

Cancer Awareness Facebook Memes

9 inches :(
7 inches :(
6.5 inches :(

Come on.  Any girl would be happy with that!  Right!  Or,

I like it on table.
I like it on the kitchen counter.

Kinky girls.  Kinky.

What is all this nonsense?  Well, it is a Facebook meme for raising cancer awareness amongst the women while leaving the men confused and befuddled.

Question 1.  How long is your foot in inches?
Question 2.  Where do you like to put your purse?

Both of these started circulating on FB sometime in October of last year.

A similar meme was what color is your bra?

I'm certainly a big fan of cancer awareness, but it seems rather silly to me to raise cancer awareness while simultaneously keeping men in the dark.  Wouldn't us guys...Shouldn't us guys also be aware?

While it certainly may generate some fun and a few snickers here and there, I really don't understand the point of leaving the men in the dark on such an issue.

So Help Me God

Religion has a sneaky way of penetrating even the most patriotic of ceremonies.  Every year, a large group of new citizens take an "Oath of Citizenship" or something to that affect.  For many years, this ceremony takes place on the 4th of July at Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson.  This oath, as written, ends with the words "so help me God."  Think about that.  Every new citizen of the United States is expected to say "so help me God."  Fortunately, a provision is provided in the rules of the oath that the "so help me God" part can be simply omitted by anyone who simply has to state that they object to it for whatever reason.  Phew.  After all, the Constitution of the United States, explicitly states that there shall be no religious test for elected office, it follows that there should be no religious test for citizenship as well.

However, even today, there are still laws in some states that explicitly forbid an atheist from holding public office.  Fortunately, in some states, this law is simply ignored.  In a few cases where it has been challenged, it has been ruled unconstitutional.

Then you get people like Texas Gov. Rick Perry who is holding a prayer vigil and a day of fasting and has invited all the Governors to join him. 

This is Governor Rick Perry and I'm inviting you to join your fellow Americans for a day of prayer and fasting on behalf of our nation. As an elected leader, I am all too aware of government's limitations when it comes to fixing things that are spiritual in nature. That's where prayer comes in, and we need it more than ever. With the economy in trouble, communities in crisis and people adrift in a sea of moral relativism, we need God's help. That's why I'm calling on Americans to pray and fast like Jesus did and as God called the Israelite to do in the Book of Joel. I sincerely hope you will join me in Houston on August the sixth and take your place in Reliant Stadium with praying people asking God's forgiveness, his wisdom and provision for our state and nation. To learn more, visit TheResponseUSA.com then makes plans to be part of something even bigger than Texas.

When Perry has been approached by the media to discuss this and the obvious conflicts involving church/state separation, Perry has declined to discuss it.  Here is what a spokesperson said on the Governor's behalf.

"He never talks about his faith," Perry spokesman Mark Miner said.

Yeah, right.  Only every other word out of his mouth.  Do you really want a political leader that is going to rely on prayer for answers to our nation's most difficult problems.  Has God ever created a job, or balanced budget?  Remember, Perry also called for prayer to put out the fires in his state back in March.  Never mind all the men and women who were working tirelessly to fight those fires.  Why even bother if God will provide.

Then you have people like Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Rick Santorum.  All three of which were called to run for POTUS because God spoke to them.  Sounds like God is a three-timing whore if you ask me.

Then you have the Mayor of Harrisburg, PA, Linda Thompson, organized a "prayer and fasting" program because, "Things that are above and beyond my control; I need God."  I bet the people of Harrisburg and feeling really good about that right about now.

Guess what?  God didn't call you to run for office, God won't fix your budget, and God won't decrease the unemployment rate.  That takes hard work and tough choices by those who we have elected to make those choices.  Leave your prayers and wishful thinking for church where it won't do you any good there either.

Atheism, Feminism, and a Blogosphere Apocolyptic Shit Storm

Have you ever posted something on Facebook that was pretty mundane and mildly uninteresting, only to have it blow up with dozens of comments in a matter of minutes?  Well, something like that happened in the atheist blogosphere over the last couple of weeks.  I am not going to link to all of the posts because there are probably about a dozen of them, along with blog comments that are relevant.  I'll try and hit the highlights.

Rebecca Watson, a blogger at Skepchick, often gives talks at various skeptic/atheist conferences on feminism and sexism, especially as it related to the atheist movement.  Rebecca was giving a talk on such issues at a conference in Dublin, then hung out with a bunch of people having beers and socializing when she decided to head back to her hotel room.  It is 4 a.m.  A guy gets into the elevator with her and asks her back to his room for coffee, she politely (and probably quite tiredly) said no.  She posted a video blog in which she mentioned this encounter and that it made her feel very uncomfortable, especially after just having given a talk about sexism that evening.  Her only comment here was to tell us guys, "Hey, don't do stuff like that."  Which I think is very justified.

Next, another female blogger (Stef) posted that she disagreed with this approach for various reasons.  This too is OK. 

Next, Rebecca called out Stef at her keynote address a day or two later.  I don't have all the details, but Rebecca got a ton of criticism for using her "privlege" and "position" as the speaker to call her out.  There are two schools of thought on this.  First, when giving examples of things you disagree with, you should be very specific as to who said what.  This stems from past history where atheist-friendly bloggers and made general accusations about other atheists, but when pressed for details and specific, could offer none.  PZ Myers stated this quite clearly in Rebecca's defense.  Others, such as Hemant Mehta of the Friendly Atheist, and a public school math teacher by day, said that this is probably not the best approach if you want to encourage people to continue to speak up.  Emphasize what was right about the response and lead them to identify what was wrong with the response.  Fair enough.  In this case, both women are adults and have a public forum to express their views, so I'm not sure the classroom approach works well here or not.  This was but one side story on the whole "ElevatorGate" issue.

Next, Richard Dawkins (yes, that Richard Dawkins) made some comments on PZ's blog that basically told Rebecca to cool her jets and since the guy didn't do anything, she was overreacting, besides, he said, there are women in Muslim countries that have it far worse than Rebecca.  These comments have caused a major shit storm.  PZ verified that it was indeed the real Richard Dawkins.  Here is a case where being a subject matter expert (SME) in on area of atheism/skepticism does not make you an expert in all things related to atheism.  Dawkins, quite simply, doesn't get how a women could feel uncomfortable in that situation, especially since nothing happened.  His attempts to clarify have only gotten him in more hot water.  Dawkins is a SME on evolution and can debate just about anyone on matters of religion.  He is also a champion for equality and women's rights as they pertain to religious persecution.  But, he is not an expert on feminism and sexism and he just doesn't get it.  I hope he does.

There have been other posts by other prominent bloggers weighing in as well.  There certainly appears to have some hurt feelings and a few friendships strained. 

Next week, I will be attending The Amazing Meeting 9 in Las Vegas.  All of the major players in this brouhaha will be there.  I strongly suspect that one of them will get them all together to hash this whole thing out.  After all, that is what reasonable people do and atheists/skeptics sort of pride themselves on being reasonable.

So, two take aways from this.  Guys, think about the position you put women in under these circumstances.   You may know you are no threat, but she doesn't.  Be aware of the context.  Hey, if you've been flirting with her all night and you head off to the elevator together, then the question is not out of line or out of place, just be prepared to hear no.  Also, ask before you are in the elevator so she has an "out" if she isn't comfortable.  Another example is when walking along a street at night and you see a women approaching and she is alone, cross the street.  Take away any sense of distress she may have.  She will likely thank you for it even if you never hear it.

Second, know that not every one of the prominent atheists out there are experts in everything.  PZ is an expert in evolutionary biology, but knows not to speak a whole lot about astrophysics and the Big Bang.  Rebecca is a SME on sexism and feminism, but probably can't speak to much about evolution.  Same with people like Dawkins, or Hitchens, etc.  Some of them know they aren't experts and do well to avoid questions our of their area of expertise.  Others think they know more than they do and insert their foot in their mouths.

Finally, I will offer a couple of links to some good "summary" blogs.  Even if you do not consider  yourself an atheist or skeptic, there are lessons to be learned from these posts.

• Friendly Atheist
• Greg Laden 
• Blaghag (includes a link to Rebecca's video with elevator incident around 4:20 or so)
• Pharyngula

The Pledge of Allegiance Facebook Status

I have seen this status posted by several friends today.  They run in different social circles and are not friends with each other.  I've also seen this posted numerous times over the last several months.  I can no longer not comment on it.  Here is the post.

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS. ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.

MY GENERATION GREW UP RECITING THIS EVERY MORNING AT SCHOOL WITH OUR HANDS ON OUR HEARTS. THEY NO LONGER DO THIS FOR FEAR OF OFFENDING SOMEONE.

LET'S SEE HOW MANY REAL AMERICANS WILL REPOST THIS AND NOT CARE ABOUT OFFENDING SOMEONE.

First, there is no need to shout.

Second, the comment that "they no longer do this" is a blatant, flat out lie.  43 states currently have laws where the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance is required in some shape or form. 

Third, just because it was some how "traditional" that we recited the Pledge when our generation was in school does not make it right.  Contrary to popular belief, tradition and correctness are not one in the same.  If we still went by "tradition," then black people would still be drinking from their own water fountains.  Tradition is a way to indoctrinate the next generation in the ways of the previous generation and are often cited as a way to justify maintaining something that is wrong today.  This is not to say that all traditions are bad, keep the good ones.  Eliminate the bad ones. 

As a side note, the concept of tradition is very strong in the Republican Party. Is not tradition not a conservative trait.  Isn't being a Conservative all about maintaining what was traditional 20, 30, 60 years ago?  The funny thing with Conservatives is that 20 years from now, they will be fighting to maintain what progressives are fighting for today, such as gay marriage, etc.  Anyway...

Fourth, I will make an assumption that the target of those who post this wish to offend non-believers with the "under God" reference.  This is humorous to me because the whole reason for this Facebook post is that those with strong Christian beliefs are offended in their own right.  So, to make it right in their mind, they must offend back.

Fifth, there is an assumption that I am somehow not a true American if a I don't post this and share the same belief in the Abrahamic God that the Pledge is clearly referencing.  I do find that offensive.  Just because I, and millions of other Americans don't believe in the same Sky Fairy as you do doesn't make us less American.  Patriotism is not defined by religious beliefs.

Another side note.  A man who is often praised and cited as being extremely patriotic and is honored quite often is Pat Tillman.  Pat Tillman was an atheist.  Are you going to argue that he wasn't patriotic?

The "under God" part was added during the era of heightened McCarthyism.  It is a relic of fear and propaganda.  Strangely, the country was doing just fine with the pre-under God form.  I believe that the Pledge of Allegiance in its current form is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment.  Numerous lawsuits had failed because those arguing in favor of keeping the "under God" are using the tradition argument for one, and also using an argument that God is somehow generic and not specific.  I already spoke about the absurdity of the tradition argument.  The generic god argument is also humorous to me.  Atheists don't really give a shit which god is mentioned because we don't believe in any god.  Also, if you were to go back and study the history of the current form of the Pledge, you would see that the intent is clearly the Abrahmic God in the eyes of Christianity.

Lastly, there are those who would argue that the Pledge of Allegiance, regardless of the form used, is, itself, unconstitutional.  Requiring a citizen of a supposedly free country to pledge allegiance to that country is somewhat dictatorial in itself. 

People Watching at Disneyland

I spent the better part of 3 days at Disneyland with my son last week.  Just walking through the park or standing in line, you really have no choice but to people watch.  Here are a few observations.

• I have never understood why young couples feel compelled to bring their infant or toddler to Disneyland.  They have no clue what is going.  They will have no memories whatsoever of the event.  One parent is stuck on child care duty while the other one goes on a ride sans child?  I just don't get it.  At least wait until they are old enough to walk on their own and have some idea of what they are doing there.
• Same as above, except with triplets.  Really?  WTF were you thinking?
• What's the deal with wearing racer-back tops with regular bras?
• Did you really stop to think that wearing sandals with 5 inch heals is going to work well for walking around Disneyland for 10 to 12 hours?
• The R2-D2 Micky Mouse ears are awesome.

• Riverbelle Terrace = Best breakfast in Disneyland.
• Yeah, those black jeans and black top are going to make you one happy camper at 2 p.m.
• I saw people in line reading books.  Amazingly enough, I saw no e-readers.  Wouldn't this be the perfect place for that?
• I must look honest, I was given the "line timing" card twice by the ride entry cast member.  They give you a red card on a lanyard that they ask you to give to the cast member upon boarding the ride.  They use this to help update the "Wait Time" at the ride entry.  (Astro Blasters and Big Thunder)
• Decidedly fewer Asian tours this year than in past years.  Tokyo Disneyland must have really cut into the guided tour business in Anaheim.  Thank the fictional gods.
• Tomorrowland sucks.  Yes, Space Mountain is cool.  Star Tours is cool.  Astro Blaster was more fun than I expected.  That's it.  Yes, technically the Autopia and the Nemo Submarine ride are in Tomorrowland, but who cares.  Moving the rocket jets from the top of the old Skyway station to the front of Tomorrowland was dumb.  It's a big roadblock.  Traffic flow is a mess.  The old Skyway/Rocket Rods ride is an eyesore.
• I really wish Monorails would have caught on more as a public transportation device.  I wonder if a raised monorail track would have been more cost efficient than the light rail lines currently in place?
• The name of the Yeti in the Matterhorn is Harold.
• Why do women insist on wearing tube/strapless tops?  It seems like they spend half their time pulling them up.
• Same as above except with regular bras.  What look are you going for?
• I actually made it a point to try and watch guys as well, but quite frankly, they were boring.  Although I did see a number of black socks with sandals.