Another Unnneeded Reminder of Why the Catholic Church is Fucked Up

The Pope fired a bishop.  The bishop's crime?  Suggesting that the RCC consider ordaining women and married men.  Now, had this bishop done something like, oh, I don't know, having sex with an altar boy?  Then he probably would have only been re-assigned.  Instead, he gets fired for suggesting something obvious, but apparently, far more blasphemous to the RCC than sexual abuse of a child.

F-U-C-K-E-D  U-P!

Once again, the RCC proves that if you take the exact opposite moral or ethical position than that of the church, you will, more than likely, be correct.

Osama Bin Laden is Dead

Good riddance.

Tonight, United States Special Operations forces infiltrated, attacked, and killed Osama Bin Laden inside of a compound in Pakistan and have captured his body.  I am curious how the United States will handle the body.

While this is certainly a moral victory, I'm afraid it will do little to change the course that the United States is currently on.

It is with ultimate irony that 8 years ago to this very day, President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in a poorly, historically goofy attempt to look tough by flying onto an Aircraft Carrier and declaring "Mission Accomplished" when nothing had been.  I can't help but think that this day should have happened years sooner had it not been Bush's elective war against Saddam Hussein and diverting so many of our national military and intelligence assets to that cause.

In President Obama's speech, he certainly seemed to make it clear that perhaps the capture of Osama Bin Laden was no longer a priority of the intelligence apparatus by the end of the Bush presidency.  He also made it clear that it was a priority of his.

Now we wait.  We wait for the reaction of the Islamic world currently in its own upheavals with no less than 20 different Islamic countries having had some form of civilian protest.

Some Semblence of Sanity in Arizona

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed the "Birther Bill."  In her veto letter, she stated,

"I do not support designating one person as the gatekeeper to the ballot for a candidate, which could lead to arbitrary or politically motivated decisions."

I think her past experience as Secretary of State gave her some insight into this that few other would have.

So Long Dilbert, It Was Nice Knowing You

Last  year, there was a big dust up on the atheist blogosphere about someone who created a blog called "Your Not Helping" that basically was criticizing various other atheist bloggers claiming that their talking down on religion was not helping the atheist cause.  Or something to that affect.  He went after some of the bigger names with blog posts, and they responded to the criticisms with their own blogs.  As it turns out, what astute atheist blogger smelled something fishy, after doing a bit of digging around, discovered that the YNH blogger was using sockpuppets to support his positions in his comments section.  For those of you that don't know what sockpuppets are (and I'm not talking about real socks), here is a quick definition from Wikipedia.

A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception within an online community. In its earliest usage, a sockpuppet was a false identity through which a member of an Internet community speaks with or about himself or herself, pretending to be a different person,^[1] like a ventriloquist manipulating a hand puppet.

The YNH blogger eventually fessed up and tried several very poor attempts at an apology.   He went so far as to completely delete his website to remove any future evidence.  Unfortunately for him, several other bloggers cached his entire blog offline.  Once it's on the Internet, it is hard to get rid of it.

So, what does this have to do with Dilbert?  Nothing directly, but it has to do with Dibert's creator, Scott Adams.  He was recently outed as having a sockpuppet on his own site pretending to be his biggest fan.  So, that very fact is deceptive and pretty much makes you a prick.  But this alone was not really enough to question my fondness for Dilbert.  I recall seeing a news article about Adams a few weeks earlier about some rant he posted.  As it turns out, it was a huge misogynist rant that he later deleted due to the firestorm it caused.  So, he is deceptive and a misogynist.  Doing a little more research, I find out he is a creationist apologist and defender of Intelligent Design with outstanding reasoning such as this (as quoted from an old Pharyngula blog)

I take the practical approach — that something is intelligent if it unambiguously performs tasks that require intelligence. Writing Moby Dick required intelligence. The Big Bang wrote Moby Dick. Therefore, the Big Bang is intelligent, and you and I are created by that same intelligence. Therefore, we are created by an intelligent entity.

Brilliant.  Also, he is apparently a former member of Mensa.  According to the Wikipedia article, which is usually pretty snark free, "and thus presumably a former genius."

I'm not sure I can view a Dilbert cartoon in the same light anymore.

Give Them Raises!

Ed Brayton has the this post about a Texas state legislator who said the following,

"It's being done in Dearborn, Mich., because of a large population of Middle Easterners," Berman said, "and the judges in Dearborn are using and allowing to be used Sharia law." He mentioned the city six times throughout his testimony.

But when asked for evidence for that ridiculous claim:

"I heard it on a radio station here on my way in to the Capitol one day," Berman said Monday in an interview. "I don't know Dearborn, Michigan but I heard it (Sharia is accepted law here) on the radio. Isn't that true?"

Yes, he heard it on the radio station.  Rep. Leo Berman proposed legislation in the Texas legislature to ban Sharia law based on what he heard on the radio while driving into work.  I wonder if he was listening to Rush or Hannity?

A search of Ed's blog would show dozens more examples.  Here is a post from PZ Myers blog today, as said by Republican Frank Nicely of Tennessee,

"I think that if there's one thing that everyone in this room could agree on, that would be that Albert Einstein was a critical thinker. He was a scientist. I think that we probably could agree that Albert Einstein was smarter than any of our science teachers in our high schools or colleges. And Albert Einstein said that a little knowledge would turn your head toward atheism, while a broader knowledge would turn your head toward Christianity."

That is a very interesting mis-quote or non-quote, especially when you consider that Einstein was a Secular Jew.

Basically, the state legislatures across the country and filled with a bunch of dumb, dim-witted, right-wing, Christian idiots.  It has often been asked why more intelligent, literate, and reasonably minded people don't run for office?  One simple answer is that it doesn't pay well enough.  However, as a society, we take vote down any possible pay raise for our state legislators because we feel that, for the most part, they don't deserve it.  And, that is true, for most of the ones currently in office.  But, you will never get enough of highly qualified legislators to run for office if you don't give the idiots in there now a raise.  Not to mention, it may reduce some of the under the table lobby money that gets thrown their way, or in the case of Arizona, Fiesta Bowl money.

I have voted for every pay raise on the state ballot for as long as I have been eligible to vote for this very reason.  By the way, the exact same argument can be made for why we don't have more excellent, highly qualified school teachers.  Not that we don't have some now, but there are nowhere near enough.

Unfortunately, the Republicans know this.  They know their only hope of maintaining majorities in the state legislatures is to be sure to dumb down the electorate so that their demagoguery will work.

Birther Madness!

The Arizona legislature has become the first in the country to pass a so-called Birther Bill.  The law, if signed, would basically require any presidential or vice-presidential candidate to prove their US citizenship to the Arizona Secretary of State for the purposes of being placed on the ballot.

I'm certainly no expert on constitutional or election law, but it would seem to me that the determination of a Federal candidate's citizenship for a Federal office is in the purview of the Federal Government.  Although they say it has nothing to do with Obama (yea, right!).

I see several ways this could play out.  First, the Obama Department of Justice could sue the state claiming that the right to determine citizenship if a federal issue and not a state issue.  However, if the Obama Administration did try this, then the conspiracy theorists would see that as proof positive that Obama is simply trying to hide is Kenyan birth for another term.  Second, Obama can give an electoral middle finger to Arizona and simply not bother to put his name on the ballot as a candidate for President.  He has no chance of winning Arizona anyway, so how bad would it look to Arizona to not have a Presidential candidate from one of the two major parties not on its ballot.  In fact, Arizona could end up with no candidate from the Dems or GOP (more on that later).  Again, conspiracy theorists would see this as proof positive that Obama is trying to hide his Kenyan birth by not placing himself in a situation where the "truth" would be told.  Funny how conspiracy theories are always proven true by contradictory evidence.  Third, he could submit the necessary forms as specified (the long birth form is not a requirement) and then wait and see if our Secretary of State is a birther and reject his bid.  In which case, the conspiracy theorists would say, "See, we told you so!"  Or, the Secretary of State could simply say, "Yes, he qualifies."  In which case, the conspiracy theorists would claim it is all a plot of the liberal media to hide the truth.  Oh, wait.  They already are.  Never mind.


Now, here is the irony.  A recent story from the Atlantic, is asking where Mitt Romney's birth certificate is?  I don't know what reason Romney has for not showing his birth certificate, and I pretty much don't care.  No candidate running for President in this day and age is going to get away with not being a U.S. Citizen.  There are simply too many public records and recorded history to get away with it.  I have no doubt Romney is a U.S. Citizen, and a natural born one at that.  But, what irony would it be if he refused to show this information to the Arizona Secretary of State and was not put on the ballot, assuming he wins the GOP nomination.  How cool would it be for Arizona to be the first state to ever cast its electoral votes for a third party candidate, because they are the only ones on the ballot.  Arizona would be the laughing stock of the nation, surpassing Alabama for that time.

What?  We already are the laughing stock of the nation?  Damn.  Alabama, you need to work hard to get the title back for The Most Bassackwards State in the Union.

Gov. Brewer Does the Right Thing for the Wrong Reason

Gov. Brewer vetoed a bill that would have increased the state's tax credit for private school donations.  She claims that it would unbalance the budget.  While this is true, and it is a good thing to not add more of a burden on our state budget, the fact is that a lot of this money goes to religious schools and that is a direct subsidy of government money for a religious purpose.    Either way, it's a good thing she vetoed it.

She also vetoed a religious liberty bill.  This bill had some serious potential for unintended consequences.  Another good move on Brewer's part.