Digital Culture & Political Pornography

The Real Mitt Romney

2012-03-20T15:29:00.000-06:00

WILL THE REAL MITT ROMNEY PLEASE STAND UP? A fantastic rap song starring Mitt Romney and Barack Obama:

Well-Behaved Men

2012-03-20T10:55:00.002-06:00

Video Game Mashups

2012-03-11T23:13:00.002-06:00

Awhile ago now, I came across a YouTube video called "Mega Man vs. Donkey Kong." The results were obvious yet inescapably hilarious:

Since then, an entire series has emerged based on this concept. Here is my favorite of the 13 episode First Season, entitled "Video Game Mashups: Contra vs. Paperboy."

Anyone who's played "Paperboy" can appreciate how frustrating this game is and how gratifying it feels to watch the soldier from "Contra" annihilate the entire neighborhood. The underlying visual rhetoric of this series is that videogames used to be pure, wholesome fun with genuine gameplay challenge... whereas modern games are crude, violent expressions of raw power and require little skill to complete. While not entirely true, this combination of pixelated slap-stick and satire is a worthwhile exercise, particularly as a celebration of post-modern retrogaming culture in Web 2.0.

Adventures in Backpack Filmmaking

2012-02-23T19:42:00.000-07:00

Until a decade ago, filmmaking required cases of heavy equipment and many crew members. With the advent of compact HD video cameras, it became possible to make "backpack films" in remote locations and with minimal crew - often with stunning results. Filmmaker and ASC professor Danny Ledonne shares some of his recent work and reflects on the adventures behind the images from his travels to Alaska, Kenya, the Galapagos, and all around the continental US.

Troops March on White House for Ron Paul

2012-02-20T18:42:00.001-07:00

Ron Paul is the only anti-war 2012 presidential candidate, receiving twice as many donations from active duty military personnel as Barack Obama and ten times more than GOP front-runner Mitt Romney.

Today's demonstration by American soldiers should remind all Americans the heavy price this country is paying - in dollars and in lives - for continual military empire. To my mind, the largest area of government spending should also be the number one issue for voters - particularly as foreign policy dramatically affects the people of the entire globe and not merely the US.

A variety of divisive social issues have and will continue to be raised by campaign strategists in both parties to herd voters into predictable groups. Abortion, gay marriage, and government welfare programs. Yet until the US government gets its fiscal house in order and is no longer beholden to corporatism and the military industrial complex, these passionate debates about social issues will be meaningless in the face of crushing debt and immoral militarism.

The Gingrich Saga: Newt Moon

2012-01-29T12:55:00.001-07:00

Being the nomination of a man whose principle interests are the moon, extramarital affairs, and Freddie Mac.

Newt is Better than You

2012-01-26T23:50:00.002-07:00

It's difficult running for president when you're

so clearly, obviously far better than everyone else.

Mitt for Brains

2012-01-22T20:47:00.002-07:00

Candidate Mitt Romney is the 21st Century's most corporate candidate, with $20,882,176 (73%) of his campaign donations coming from wealthy corporations like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and (surprise!) his own Bain Capital (source). Indeed, Mitt Romney is truly the candidate for the 1%.

(click for large version)

Jesus Christ and Slavery

2012-01-16T16:01:00.001-07:00

If Jesus Christ had spent more time criticizing the institution of slavery instead of performing miracles to win friends and influence people, there may not have been a need for Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Christian Scriptures and Slavery:

Neither Jesus nor St. Paul, nor any other Biblical figure is recorded as saying anything in opposition to the institution of slavery. Slavery was very much a part of life in Judea, Galilee, and in the rest of the Roman Empire during New Testament times. The practice continued in England, Canada and the rest of the English Empire until the early 19th century; it continued in the U.S. until later in the 19th century. (source)

NDAA and Obama Kool-Aid

2012-01-07T12:13:00.003-07:00

OKAY KIDS, TIME TO PUT DOWN THE OBAMA KOOL-AID. If you plan on voting for Barack Obama after the egregious assault on civil liberties as represented by signing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law, you are probably drinking too much Obama Kool-Aid. This shit is about to get real, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (source).

"The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield... We are extremely disappointed that President Obama signed this bill even though his administration is already claiming overly-broad detention authority in court. Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back those claims dimmed today. Thankfully we have three branches of government, and the final word on the scope of detention authority belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA’s detention authority."

This is the kind of Big Brother non-sense that most liberals and progressives once protested and marched against during the Bush Administration. The continual impulse to protect Barack Obama and rationalize his apparent indifference toward the Bill of Rights is only discrediting the Democratic Party and the critical thinking skills of its members.

"Yes we can - indefinitely detain American citizens without charges or legal counsel!"

40,000 laws under the books

2011-12-30T15:14:00.001-07:00

DO YOU LIVE IN A FREE COUNTRY? 40,000 new laws were passed in 2011. Another gift from your benevolent government "protecting" you.

"The more laws that are written, the more criminals are produced," -Lao Tzu

Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!

2011-12-29T18:57:00.001-07:00

TURN THE TABLES, WORK FOR PEACE AND PROSPERITY. What if America was occupied by a foreign military power? What should you do about it? And what should the people of the occupying country do...? A valuable thought exercise.

Jesus was way cool

2011-12-25T00:32:00.001-07:00

"Jesus Was Way Cool" by King Missile

Jesus was way cool
Everybody liked Jesus
Everybody wanted to hang out with him
Anything he wanted to do, he did
He turned water into wine
And if he wanted to
He could have turned wheat into marijuana
Or sugar into cocaine
Or vitamin pills into amphetamines

He walked on the water
And swam on the land
He would tell these stories
And people would listen
He was really cool

If you were blind or lame
You just went to Jesus
And he would put his hands on you
And you would be healed
That's so cool

He could've played guitar better than Hendrix
He could've told the future
He could've baked the most delicious cake in the world
He could've scored more goals than Wayne Gretzky
He could've danced better than Baryshnikov
Jesus could have been funnier than any comedian you can think of
Jesus was way cool

He told people to eat his body and drink his blood
That's so cool
Jesus was so cool
But then some people got jealous of how cool he was
So they killed him
But then he rose from the dead
He rose from the dead, danced around
Then went up to heaven
I mean, that's so cool
Jesus was way cool

No wonder there are so many Christians

Bradley Manning: Almost Gone

2011-12-20T01:04:00.000-07:00

A companion video for "Almost Gone" - a new song by legendary singer-songwriter Graham Nash and musician James Raymond (son of David Crosby) - is being released today in support of accused U.S. Army whistleblower Bradley Manning. The release is timed to Manning's first judicial hearing scheduled for December 16th, following more than 17-months in custody, including a year in solitary confinement that Amnesty International has characterized as "harsh and punitive."

THE GINGRICH WHO STOLE THE GOP NOMINATION

2011-12-09T12:41:00.002-07:00

This image is going to be incredibly difficult for Newt to shake because it's so darned true.

Bad Lip-Reading: "Ron Paul"

2011-12-07T12:27:00.001-07:00

First of all, I LOVE the Bad Lip-Reading video series... this one is especially endearing. Based on his tremendous insight here, I like this Ron Paul almost as much as the real one. Unfortunately, most politicians sound this crazy WITHOUT being lip-read badly.

Rape a Virgin, Get a Wife

2011-12-01T08:59:00.002-07:00

Deuteronomy 22:28-29: "If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels* of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." *about 20 ounces of silver or about $650

Parents Against LEGOs

2011-11-23T20:29:00.014-07:00

Good parenting requires vigilance. A good parent is mindful of the harm that could come to their child and make sure to set a good moral example for them. Aside from the very real dangers in the everyday world - like food poisoning, reckless drivers, or gay people in positions of responsibility - children are especially vulnerable while at play. The toys your children use might undermine the very values you're trying to instill in them. They may leave children exposed to hidden dangers and corrupting influences. That is why I have formed P.A.L. - Parents Against LEGOs.

The most corrupting influences are
always the most innocent in appearance.

I know what you're thinking. With all the murder-simulating violent videogames out there, as well as music that encourages children to worship Satan or the movies that glorify sex acts which haven't been sanctified by church and state, well... why would something as innocuous, as banal, as traditional as LEGO building blocks be dangerous? Like the raised bumps on the interlocking bricks themselves, the reasons against giving LEGOs to your unsuspecting children are numerous!

LEGO promotes unrealistic body image

Impressionable children model their appearances after those they look up to. If children grow up with LEGO figurines, they look at their own bodies and feel inadequate. With so much pressure from the media on appearance over substance, children learn at a young age that what matters most is having a cheerful, antiseptic smile at all times, broad, defined shoulders, perfectly rounded arms and perfectly square legs, a constantly rigid, upright posture, perfectly flat abs, and full 360 degree neck rotation.

Folks, almost no one looks like this. Yet the hype surrounding LEGOs suggest to children that they are somehow undesirable or unimportant if they don't conform to the (quite literally) rigid standards of LEGO figurines. And sadly, the hollow interiors of LEGO characters only reinforce the notion that what matters most is on the outside of us: bright colors and the ability to posture ourselves to please others even at our own discomfort.
LEGO encourages conformity and punishes individuality

The basic assumption of LEGO bricks is that they are universally compatible. LEGO figurines have minimal aesthetic differences - all of which are pre-determined and cannot be chosen by the characters themselves. They are assigned to specific functions and are valued only for their collective assimilation, not their individual identities. They must always interlock, they must never contain shapes or angles that would enable them to express themselves in a unique way. Regardless of personal beliefs, they must "snap" together and bend to the whims of a central plan - of which they are merely a small part.

The implications here are immeasurably damaging to a young person. At just the age at which children emerge as autonomous beings, LEGOs are indoctrinating them to a worldview of the collective over the self, the societal goals over the individual's rights. In the ideology of LEGO bricks, the end justifies the means; if one LEGO figure's head is needed on another's body or if arms must be interchanged, so be it. Self-ownership and personal sovereignty are unheard of in the world of LEGO. Is it any surprise, then, that these bricks originated from the socialist think-tank of Europe?
LEGO desensitizes children to architecture

Youngsters don't know the difference between bridges and roads or towers and tunnels. These are values that must be taught. Yet when playing with LEGOs, children mistakenly believe that such structures can be assembled on a whim - with no accountability or consequences for shoddy design. If the tower collapses or the tunnel caves in, the virtually indestructible LEGO characters endure no pain or suffering. And, as previously mentioned, individual LEGO figures are interchangeable, anyway.

Imagine the long term effects of playing with LEGOs for many hours a day over the course of several years! Children begin to assume that all structures - from cars and planes to houses and offices - are arranged effortlessly, without care for inhabitants or careful consideration to building materials. We are raising a generation of children to believe that there are no consequences for hastily-constructed buildings... and carelessly-built lives.
LEGO encourages dependence on government programs

While the many other features of the LEGO character which damage a child's development have been identified, the most insidious is also the least obvious: the universal feature of the LEGO figurine's hands. Aside from its disregard for individual fingers, the real scourge is the constant open palm. All LEGO characters are looking for a hand out - and so will your son or daughter after a childhood of playing with them.

Rather then being productive individuals, the LEGO figures rely on the collective welfare state of pre-fabricated objects that are made to fit the demands of their molded grip. Children learn from LEGO that the world revolves around their demands and must be met simply because they exist - not because they are willing to work hard and earn their own wealth. LEGO "kits" always contain precisely what children expect of them and are given a detailed diagram that gives step-by-step instructions. It is little wonder, then, that most kids today aren't willing to think for themselves or put in a hard day's work. Why should they? Have you ever seen a LEGO house built by the LEGO characters that live in it? You can't spell "LEGO" without "ego."
Oh, and they're also a choking hazard

Lowkey - Terrorist?

2011-11-14T13:39:00.002-07:00

Another fantastic music video by Lowkey - who is a terrorist?

Paul in 90 Seconds

2011-11-13T00:34:00.001-07:00

The Ron Paul Media Blackout continues. Last night's GOP presidential debate lasted 3,600 seconds (60 minutes) and Ron Paul was only allowed 90 seconds. Of the eight candidates on the stage, the "average" candidate should have 450 seconds - of course Romney, Cain, and Perry had far more, reiterating the same Bush/Obama talking points of occupation and neo-colonialism. Ron Paul only got 20% of his fair air time!

Nonetheless, in 90 seconds Ron Paul was able to stand for:

-peaceful foreign policy through trade and diplomacy, not military aggression

-ending torture for moral, legal, and practical reasons

-ending the Obama Administration's program of unilaterally assassinating American citizens without due process of law

-oppose nation-building, policing, and occupying countries across the globe

Some of my liberal friends seems puzzled or even outraged when I state my support for Ron Paul as president in 2012. But it's really not complicated.

Plan 999 from Outer Space!

2011-10-25T11:36:00.001-06:00

Everything you need to know about the recent GOP Presidential Debates:

Jesus Christ Occupies Wall Street

2011-10-14T16:24:00.001-06:00

Because you know that this is What Jesus Would Do.

Herman Cain - We Are the 1 Percent

2011-10-10T20:17:00.000-06:00

Since Herman Cain has such conspiratorial vitriol for the We Are The 99 Percent movement that is now occupying Wall Street and many cities nationwide (source), it only seems fitting that his campaign should release this as their new slogan:

I'm a Secular Progressive - Ron Paul doesn't Scare Me

2011-10-08T21:13:00.007-06:00

It's always disappointing to me how predictably insular and myopic opposition to Ron Paul is from the left. Progressives largely support his foreign policy position of non-aggression and diplomacy and he remains among the only Republicans who want to end military occupation and bring the troops home (something like 800 military bases in over 100 countries is frequently cited). These are positions that institutional Democrats pretend to be interested in on the campaign trail but clearly have no intention to uphold in office. Paul is also an outspoken critic of government collusion with the financial industry as well as the corrupting influence money has on the political process - the hallmark issues emerging from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

So what criticism is leveraged at Paul? In debates I've had on this subject over the past year, it is always divisive wedge issues like abortion, government policy regarding race relations, or personal religious beliefs (source). And instead of producing convincing video clips or analysis that succinctly illustrate the objection that liberals have to Ron Paul, the rebuttal always comes in the form of obscure, cherry-picked quotes from an Internet echo chamber with limited and outdated source material. Clearly, this is the rebuttal of last resort because more substantive objections do not exist.

I have watched dozens if not hundreds of interviews and debates Ron Paul has done over the years. I remain in agreement with him on over 90% of his positions - far higher than Barack Obama and certainly higher than the rest of the GOP Freakshow. And I'm a pro-choice atheist. The matters that continue to be raised in the "scary Ron Paul quotes" genre remain marginal and trivial in light of the very real issues our country is facing - none of which include the subject matter raised in these spurious red herring arguments.

Meanwhile, the people of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and other countries continue to suffer under the oppression of the military industrial complex by way of predator drone strikes, bombing campaigns, collateral damage from kill/capture raids, and similar injustices. Further, the people of the United States watch their civil liberties erode on all fronts while the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar continues to decline from Keynesian economic policy. It is as though the pitcher of Obama Kool-Aid must be protected at all costs, even as President Obama continues defying the core electoral mandates of his base (ending war, restoring personal liberty, addressing reckless corporatism, etc.).

So should an atheist like myself be scared by obscure Ron Paul quotes? To the contrary, secular progressives should be much more concerned with Barack Obama:

As with virtually every other politician including Ron Paul, Obama is also a Christian (despite xenophobic assertions by the Birthers). Yet Obama's views on same sex marriage remain "evolving" (source) while Paul flatly stated in a 2007 debate that he believes all associations - including same sex marriage - remain voluntary and should be religious functions rather than state functions (source and source).
Paul also supports gays and lesbians serving openly in the military - much to the distress of Christian conservatives (source).
Conversely, Obama also continues to support the death penalty (source) while Ron Paul has come to believe it should no longer be applied (source).
Paul wants to end the disastrous "war on drugs" (source) while Obama continues to escalate it (source).
Obama has now set historical precedent by assassinating American citizens without due process of law under secret government panels (source) while Paul vehemently opposes this practice and insists doing so is an impeachable offense (source).
With deep opposition from his base, Obama uncritically renewed the PATRIOT Act (source) - a vile hallmark of the Bush Administration that liberals almost universally decried. Ron Paul has been consistently opposed to it (source).
And obviously, Obama has continued and in some cases expanded Bush-era military policies (source) while Paul remains steadfastly opposed to them and has emerged as a true champion of peace (source).

Progressives can wring their hands and make excuses about these and other Obama betrayals, but the unhappy fact remains that their champion has been bought and paid for by Wall Street (source) - which goes a long way in explaining why Obama has shrugged off the notion of prosecuting anyone from the 2008 financial melt-down - the largest theft of capital in modern history.

Once upon a recent time, progressives cared about these issues. And I thought they cared about the issues more than party politics. I certainly do. And that is why, on these and many other issues, Barack Obama has been the Left's Big Letdown - yet so many remain opposed to Ron Paul for little more than fear-mongering claims of theocracy. But personality politics are irrelevant. What matter are governing philosophies and legislative actions - of which progressives share far more with Ron Paul than many Democrats (including Obama).

So I will take my chances with Ron Paul's personal beliefs on Creationism - particularly since he has never said anything approaching the state-mandated teaching of it in the classroom. While Ricks Santorum and Perry regularly bring their religious views to the forefront of their campaigns, Ron Paul's religious convictions rarely if ever enter his campaign platform and that's the way I like it. The scattered and obscure objections that are frequently presented against Ron Paul by the left don't scare me - and of course the protestations from neo-conservatives are why I will further support him in the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary.

If you haven't yet, you should, too: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/

Song A Day #1003: They Booed A Gay Soldier

2011-10-03T20:26:00.000-06:00

Jonathan Mann has been writing and performing a song a day for nearly three years now. This is his 1,003rd song - about Tea Party crowds at GOP debates and the booing of Stephen Hill, a US soldier serving in Iraq (source). I especially appreciate the discourse between the solo vocals and the chorus. Check it out:

Killing al-Awlaki has made America less Safe

2011-10-01T20:26:00.008-06:00

The assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki has tragic consequences on the rule of law and giving due process to all individuals accused of a crime. Not that al-Awlaki was every charged, much less given a trial, before a Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) operation killed him and six others in Yemen this week (source).

While the Bush Administration was fond of kidnapping people, detaining them in military prisons indefinitely without charges, and torturing them (source), the Obama Administration seems to prefer outright assassination operations followed by hopes of higher approval ratings (source). While most of the mainstream media and political pundits across the spectrum seem to approve of President Obama's "shoot first, justify killings later" approach, there are dissenting voices. Notre Dame law professor Mary Ellen O'Connell summarizes her concerns of the legal slippery slope the Executive Branch is sliding down (source):

And what about within the U.S.? If the president can target suspects in Yemen, why not here? And why just the president? Why can’t governors order missile strikes on suspected terrorists and other criminals? We are told with respect to targeted killing - as we were with torture - that post-9/11 circumstances require extraordinary measures. Some of our leading ethicists countered that the absolute ban on torture must be respected as a moral imperative, regardless of the consequences. We could say the same about targeted killing, but, as in the case of torture, it turns out that doing the moral thing is also the effective thing.

The intrepid reporting of The Nation's Jeremy Scahill is also a welcome voice of reason:

Glenn Greenwald further identifies the double standard that the political left in America seems to have with regard to presidential transgression of authority (source):

Remember that there was great controversy that George Bush asserted the power simply to detain American citizens without due process or simply to eavesdrop on their conversations without warrants. Here you have something much more severe. Not eavesdropping on American citizens, not detaining them without due process, but killing them without due process, and yet many Democrats and progressives, because it’s President Obama doing it, have no problem with it and are even in favor of it. To say that the President has the right to kill citizens without due process is really to take the constitution and to tear it up into as many little pieces as you can and then burn it and step on it.

As I have mentioned previously after the assassination of (an unarmed) Osama Bin Laden (source), this kind of extra-judicial killing is not just an international travesty but one whose domestic implications will be longstanding. Following the assassination of al-Awlaki, the U.S. State Department has announced that Americans are in elevated danger when traveling abroad (source) - as was the case after the killing of Bin Laden. While popular opinion seems to be "the world is a better place, and Americans are safer, after the removal of al-Awlaki," reliable intelligence sources indicate that the opposite is true.

Rather than training in the operation of stealth helicopters and assault weapons, I believe JSOC needs to be trained by any zookeeper in the use of a tranquilizer gun. If the case for al-Awlaki's criminal actions was so strong, it should have been presented before a jury as he stood trial - not used as posthumous rationale for killing him in a missile strike as he sat eating breakfast in the Yemeni desert.

Not coincidentally, I wrote about the dangerous dehumanization of warfare waged by predator drones the day before these very same tactics were used against al-Awlaki (source).

The American Terminator

2011-09-29T14:47:00.003-06:00

Tom Engelhardt has written a sobering yet terrifying article on the development and demand for UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle) by the U.S. Defense Department. Often called "Predator Drones" or "Reapers," these mammon machines are becoming all the rage for waging war from above. Remotely controlled and increasingly networked with information-sharing technology to create a single "hive mind," these aptly-named drones will likely become the killing force of the future (source). Engelhardt writes of their growing appeal:

They are relatively cheap. When they “hunt,” no one dies (at least on our side). They are capable of roaming the world. Someday, they will land on the decks of aircraft carriers or, tiny as hummingbirds, drop onto a windowsill, maybe even yours, or in their hundreds, the size of bees, swarm to targets and, if all goes well, coordinate their actions using the artificial intelligence version of “hive minds.”

A "Hunter-Killer Drone" from the Terminator film series (L) and a U.S. military "Predator Drone" (R).

This is all wonderful news, of course, if you are a deeply indebted, crumbing empire with 1 in 4 children living in poverty (source). Rather than conscripting or back-door drafting soldiers to face down gunfire and improvised explosive devices to take out insurgents in up to 80 countries (source), the Bush and Obama Administrations have increasingly outsourced their military force to machines. No more military funerals, no more burning draft cards, no more public outcry over the human cost of war. Well, at least not on the side of the "good guys." But geopolitics and nationalism aside, Engelhardt understands the woeful ghost in the machine of mechanized warfare:

Just think about the last time you went to a Terminator film: Who did you identify with? John and Sarah Connor, or the implacable Terminators chasing them? And you don’t need artificial intelligence to grasp why in a nanosecond.

With their growing economy, particularly in the tech sector, it might be worth asking how U.S. citizens would react to China flying UAVs over the United States. Or any country, for that matter. While the doomsday scenario of Technological Singularity - in which machines gain self-awareness and promptly decide humans must be eradicated (source)- is still a few decades away, the grim realities of dehumanized warfare are already upon us.

Beneath the slick action sequences and Hollywood plot line, the Terminator film series is a cautionary tale of how much military might to entrust in machines; the main antagonist in the series is the faceless, calculated computer brain of Skynet - which controls a vast network of sophisticated, weaponized robots that patrol the ground, sea, and air. Developed by Cyberdyne Systems for the U.S. Armed Forces, Skynet was hailed as the first "Global Digital Defense Network" (source). This is not dissimilar from the terminology and tactics currently underway by the CIA. Engelhardt reports:

As journalist Ron Suskind reported in his book The One Percent Doctrine, in a “Presidential Finding” on September 17, 2011, only six days after the World Trade Center towers went down, Bush granted the CIA an unprecedented license to wage war globally. By then, the CIA had presented him with a plan whose name was worthy of a sci-fi film: the “Worldwide Attack Matrix.”

On the moral spectrum of behavior, humans killing one another is bad enough. But humans programming machines to remotely kill other humans seems to me far worse in terms of ethical approaches to problem-solving. Simply, sending machines to kill on one's behalf is not something "the good guys" do. Imagine any action or science fiction film in which the hero sits at a computer terminal and annihilates his enemies halfway around the world as they flee from a hovering drone's machine gun fire. There is no nobility in warfare without sacrifice, without even a pretense of putting the courage of one's convictions on the line. And yet, despite the obvious physical safety of piloting robots 7,000 miles away, the psychological cost of operating a Predator Drone may be far greater than conventional aerial warfare. Written on the Military.com news website in 2008 (source):

In a fighter jet, "when you come in at 500-600 mph, drop a 500-pound bomb and then fly away, you don't see what happens," said Col. Albert K. Aimar, who is commander of the 163rd Reconnaissance Wing here and has a bachelor's degree in psychology. But when a Predator fires a missile, "you watch it all the way to impact, and I mean it's very vivid, it's right there and personal. So it does stay in people's minds for a long time." He said the stresses are "causing some family issues, some relationship issues." He and other Predator officers would not elaborate.

Often, the military also directs Predators to linger over a target after an attack so that the damage can be assessed. "You do stick around and see the aftermath of what you did, and that does personalize the fight," said Col. Chris Chambliss, commander of the active-duty 432nd Wing at Creech Air Force Base, Nev. "You have a pretty good optical picture of the individuals on the ground. The images can be pretty graphic, pretty vivid, and those are the things we try to offset. We know that some folks have, in some cases, problems."

The ethical dimensions of mechanized warfare are vast. Can a machine be held legally responsible for the death of a civilian? Who is put on trial - in military or civilian courts - when a UAV mistakenly identifies a fruit stand in a bustling village as a terrorist munitions bunker and kills a dozen innocents? The manufacturer of the weapon? The programmer? The drone operator? The commanding officer who ordered the strike? More importantly, would any machine hesitate - even for a second - to shoot down a mother clutching her baby if programmed to do so? Can empathy and humanity be programmed into a machine? If it is designed to kill, would that even be a useful design goal?

The American Terminator - coming to a battlefield near you.

Indeed, we must now add "remote mechanized warfare" to the list of reasons as to "Why They Hate Us."

Obama Nation

2011-09-26T13:49:00.000-06:00

"drones over Pakistan, Yemen and Libya

is Obama the bomber getting ready for Syria?

first black president, the masses were hungry

but the same president just bombed an African country"

A stunning, raging, sagacious hip-hop video about the betrayed ideals placed in Barack Obama:

Wall Street Fighter

2011-09-25T14:36:00.000-06:00

ROUND 1 ... FIGHT!

Penn Jillette on Atheism and Libertarianism

2011-09-22T21:39:00.001-06:00

A great interview with Penn Jillette on atheism and libertarianism:

Oh, Church Shootings!

2011-09-18T12:22:00.004-06:00

Church massacres are always an interesting genre of rampage killing. There are obvious political overtones to shooting up people in the house of the Lord. In that wacky summer that brought us the Holocaust Museum shooting (source) and the Tea Party protests of "death panels" resulting from Heath Care Reform (source), Dr. George Tiller - a prominent abortion provider - was shot and killed in his Kansas church by a far right zealot who opposed a woman's right to choose pregnancy termination (source). The National Guard was called in to protect abortion clinics and the usual cast of anti-abortion zealots had to walk back their rhetoric and pretend their constant harangue had nothing to do with Dr. Tiller's death.

Well, today we have a new church shooting and, of course, the details of the case are just a few days away. After a previous act of homicide, 57 year old Jeremiah Fogel opened fire in a Lakeland, Florida church but was held down until police arrived to arrest him (source). No doubt this tragic mayhem increased the faith factor among churchgoers - despite the fact that God clearly allowed Fogel to enter the church with a loaded weapon and did nothing to intervene. The real faith should be placed in the responsive citizens who ended the gunman's rampage - not the apathetic-as-usual God of the Bible.

Oh, and as if a non-sequitur, the AP article ends with:

"The suspect owned a limousine service that provided transportation to the airport and often worked outside with his wife, mowing the lawn and pulling weeds, neighbors said."

There you have it, folks: too much yard work leads to mass murder. So don't force your old man to mow the lawn and pull weeds too often or your local church will be the next to eat hot lead! Thanks to Jack Thompson for this bit of insight (source).

Weeding out the suspects - the investigation continues.

Quantum Physics Never Sounded So Good

2011-09-17T01:11:00.001-06:00

I've been a longtime fan of the Symphony of Science series. This episode is among the most visually stunning and aurally entrancing. With science like this, what need is there for the archaic mythologies of God?

Obama 2012: The Least Worst

2011-09-15T12:44:00.007-06:00

"There will always be a 'least worst' between the Democrats and Republicans, every four years, every two years. And 'least worst' means that you exert no pull on the least worst, and, therefore, your own influence and your own impact is self-limited." —Ralph Nader, November 3rd, 2004

9/11: A Conspiracy Theory

2011-09-12T20:28:00.001-06:00

AN OUTRAGEOUS CONSPIRACY THEORY! If you still believe the government's official story of September 11th, 2001 after spending five minutes watching this, there's nothing more I can say to convince you.

Tea Partiers and the Death Penalty

2011-09-08T16:00:00.001-06:00

"I'm amazed to see so many "conservatives" who are skeptical of government become so faithful when it comes to the ultimate act of government; namely the death penalty."

-Judge Andrew Napolitano, 9/8/2011

The cheers in the audience are completely vile and disgusting. The hypocrisy among Tea Partiers on the death penalty issue is astounding. They get furious over the made-up controversy of "death panels" and are skeptical of government oversight of education, business, or industry... yet they have NO PROBLEM with government bureaucracy ending human life.

Ricky Perry still doesn't get it.

2011-09-08T11:03:00.001-06:00

(click for full version)

Pedestrian Speed Limits: A Modest Proposal

2011-09-07T15:16:00.003-06:00

If government regulations are designed to protect us all and make us safer, why don't we have pedestrian speed limits? We should. And this blog entry is devoted to why.

Clearly, motor vehicle regulation is very important. I drive a small truck and, if it weren't for helpful signs and police enforcement of speed limits, I would very likely be dead by now. See, there is nothing I enjoy more than driving in excess of 65 miles per hour in residential zones or on busy roads. Rather than assessing the driving conditions around me based on pedestrian traffic, vehicular traffic, weather conditions, and road conditions, I operate my vehicle solely based on the arbitrary number posted on a sign that applies to all times of day or night regardless of the actual conditions on the road. And this is just one of the many ways in which the government keeps me safe.

Speed limit enforced for your safety!

So why stop there? It's a known fact that we live in a dangerous country for pedestrians! According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were 4,092 pedestrian deaths and 59,000 pedestrian injuries in 2009 alone (source). And yet there are minimal regulations on the treacherous sidewalks of America. While the enforcement of jaywalking ordinances have been helpful in preventing me from brazenly walking across the street whenever I might want to, what is to stop me from operating my shoes at unsafe speeds - likely causing collisions with other pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles, and stationary objects? Presently, nothing except my own senses and rational self-interest. But by living on this particular land mass of the North American continent, I unknowingly signed a social contract which obligates me to surrender reasonable freedom of movement in order to assure the collective safety of society.

Therefore, I hereby put forward the modest proposal of capping all pedestrian traffic to 5 miles per hour (adjusted for inflation) - which includes everything up to and including a brisk walk. Running would not be covered and would require a fee-based permit, approved in advance, to ensure that multiple pedestrians are not running on the same block at the same time. This would not only ensure public safety but this licensing process would raise valuable revenue for the state. Such funds could go toward a "walk, don't run" program in public schools, which of course students would be heavily tested over to ensure no child is left running ahead.

If this program is successful, perhaps a minimum speed of 3 miles per hour could also be enforced to further protect citizens from pedestrian accidents. But that might be too stringent, I'm just not sure.

Preservation in the Digital Age

2011-08-24T23:49:00.000-06:00

A great interview with two eminent Internet archivists:

Full Denial Mode

2011-08-18T22:16:00.003-06:00

As I predicted months ago and in true form to their identical 2008 marginalization tactics, the mainstream media outlets are in Full Denial Mode after Ron Paul polls a close second in the Iowa Straw Poll. Jon Stewart is on the case:

The Daily Show - Indecision 2012 - Corn Polled Edition - Ron Paul & the Top Tier

Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

It is clear that whatever Paul's positions are, they are outside the realm of acceptable political debate and corporate media will continue working tirelessly to pretend Ron Paul doesn't exist. Meanwhile, grassroots support for his campaign continues to grow.

A riot is the language of the unheard

2011-08-08T23:14:00.001-06:00

As civil unrest is on the rise around the globe:

‎

"When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty and shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up and express their anger and frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

U.S. Military Action Makes Americans Less Safe?

2011-07-26T15:02:00.009-06:00

I came across a rather unsurprising headline today:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says Osama bin Laden's death has raised the risk of anti-American violence worldwide. The State Department said in a global travel warning Tuesday that Americans should take precaution and maintain vigilance about terrorist threats, demonstrations and the possibility of violence against U.S. citizens. (source)

Of course, "death" is a sanitized term. Bin Laden did not die. He was assassinated, while unarmed. But I digress.

This State Department memo confirms a suspicion I have long held: far from "keeping Americans safe," U.S. military aggression around the globe has actually made being an American more dangerous. While one can argue about the legal justification of the Osama Bin Laden kill/capture mission, the "blow back" from this and many other U.S. military actions will be fierce and longstanding. It only stands to reason that American journalists, tourists, and other travelers have and will continue to be targeted and subjected to undue dangers due to their nationality. This implicit support for the world's largest military superpower - one that has regularly chosen force over diplomacy for over sixty years - has led many American journalists to pose as Australians, Brits, Canadians... anyone except for Team America, World Police. One begins to wonder if, on balance, Americans would be safer at home and abroad (as well as more fiscally sound) if the military literally did nothing other than lay off 80% of its personnel and patrol the border.

"FUCK YEAH!" - it's no accident that
Team America consists of puppets.

Realize, of course, that any act of retaliation from Islamic terrorist cells from the Bill Laden assassination will merely serve as further justification by U.S. officials for prolonged militarism in the Middle East (as promised in the Project for the New American Century - source), perpetuating an ongoing cycle of violence which assuredly started long before September 11th, 2001. I do not claim to be an expert on U.S. foreign policy or the political history of Northern Africa or Central Asia, but it seems clear to me that the assassination of Osama Bin Laden (as well as the bizarre and barbaric act of throwing his body into the ocean), predator drone strikes in Pakistan, kill/capture missions in Afghanistan, the continued occupation of Iraq, and the new military misadventures in Yemen and Libya are draining the resources of Americans at home and making them less safe abroad. So long as the last act of aggression serves as justification for the next, peace and prosperity will remain distant notions playing in the background while the military industrial complex continues to aggress pre-emptively against any who would seek oppose it.

Unfortunately, drastic reduction to U.S. military operations may prove to be too little, too late; vendettas have been claimed on all sides and asymmetric violence will remain appealing to military strategists for the foreseeable future. When the only tool one has is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail. To U.S. military power, the hearts and minds of Afghans have been lost. As Molly Ivins once observed, "it's hard to convince people that you're killing them for their own good."

Marcus Bachmann is Super!

2011-07-16T16:12:00.001-06:00

A loving musical number for the "gay-curing" Christian doctor who is so far in the closet that he's having adventures in Narnia with Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann!

The Range of Debate

2011-07-13T20:31:00.001-06:00

With all the partisan bickering going on this week in Washington with regard to raising the limit on the US National Debt, it's worth revisting an observation by America's greatest living intellectual dissident:

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." -Noam Chomsky

Greece 2011

2011-07-05T14:56:00.002-06:00

A tragic musical of austerity.

WikiLeaks' Brilliant MasterCard Commercial Parody

2011-07-02T17:18:00.000-06:00

"There are some people who don't like change. For everyone else, there's Wikileaks."

Obama's "Evolving" views on Same-Sex Marriage

2011-06-24T16:15:00.004-06:00

PRESIDENTIAL POSTURING LIKE THIS INFURIATES ME (source). Obama is in full fundraising mode so it's clear that he is courting the "gay vote" across the country, yet he continues to hamstring himself to placate social conservatives ("Blue Dog" Democrats?) by claiming his views on same sex marriage are "evolving." Really? What if a candidate has "evolving" views on interracial marriage, women's suffrage, or slavery?

A disingenuous form of evolution: political posturing over ideological substance.

GLBT rights advocates are boxed into voting for Obama because it's entirely obvious that the GOP will not produce a gay rights affirming candidate. Yet the notion that someone as intelligent and educated as Barack Obama has "evolving" views on something as simple as marriage equality is patently insulting. It's clear to everyone that he is merely pandering to both sides of the debate, hoping to rake in the most votes, while avoiding taking a strong position for what he believes is right.

I respect anti-gay pastor Fred Phelps. I respect gay rights advocate Dan Savage. These are men of action whose views on the subject are transparent and frankly-stated. But I have no patience for Obama and his ilk who attempt to compromise their values so heavily that what remains is a poll-tested, enfeebled shill who will follow campaign cash over substantive moral courage.

UPDATE: I'm not entirely sure if NY state passing same sex marriage legislation (source) will be the tipping point or not, but eventually there will be a "critical mass" after which most other state and federal officials will have no choice but to honor marriage equality.

Bob Gets "Bob Gets Krang"

2011-06-23T19:32:00.002-06:00

A post-structural exercise in home video meta-cinema: the whole story about Bob, Krang, and a 21 year gap. This is notable mostly for its combination of home video footage, Fair Use in Copyright, and the generally esoteric nature of my sense of humor.

DANNY LEDONNE EATS ILLEGAL CHOCOLATE!

2011-06-11T00:22:00.006-06:00

... And explains why the government is protecting you from dangerous combinations of toys and candy. For more information on how the Department of Homeland Security is keeping you safe from Kinder Eggs, visit this link.

Dumb and Dumber 2012

2011-06-05T13:09:00.002-06:00

CHANGE you can HOPE the GOP believes in!

The Myth of the Middle Class

2011-05-29T00:50:00.002-06:00

Welcome to Washington, DC - the US capital. In this tale of two cities (Northwest and Southeast DC), the median income disparities could hardly be greater ($29k vs. $140k). Yet residents in both Georgetown and Anacostia regard themselves as "middle class." Why?

This fine RT report rightly points out that real wages are stagnant or declining in all income sectors except the very top - yet does not address the underlying mythology behind the "middle class" in America. In some sense, the notion that the growing levels of wealth depreciation and poverty have not disrupted the "average American" is a necessary illusion; the masses will be kept subservient and docile so long as they believe that they are, relatively speaking, doing just fine. Only a few "fringe" politicians and economists are wiling to admit that the center is falling out of America, creating an inverted bell curve of the have and have-nots. So long as most Americans believe they are "middle class," they will concede ever greater wealth and power to a small group of elites who continue to widen the disparities in income (at the expense of everyone else).

2011-05-23T19:33:00.002-06:00

Let me call this one right now: Ron Paul won't get the GOP nomination and the broad swath of Republicans who support him will be furious with Fox News' desperate 24/7 marginalization of the most popular candidate in the race. What Fox News does is disgraceful to begin with, but it is even more clear when trying to shape a particular ideology within its own party allegiances.

The rapture claimed victims

2011-05-22T14:49:00.001-06:00

There are real faces behind the tragedy of belief without evidence. The fraudulent claim that the world was coming to an end of May 21st, 2011 is the most recent example. YouTuber Askegg shows us just a few people whose lives have been deeply compromised by uncritical religious beliefs:

America: One Nation Imprisoned?

2011-05-15T19:47:00.002-06:00

QUESTION: is a disproportionate number of American citizens in jail because they are inherently more criminal or because the American government has invented more crimes?

I saw this on the Metro at National Airport in DC.

Evolution: it's not a controversy.

2011-05-11T01:55:00.001-06:00

Having interviewed Eugenie Scott (source) earlier this year, I know about Project Steve and think it to be a brilliant rhetorical campaign to demonstrate how foundational evolutionary biology is to modern science.

Ron Paul's first 2012 Republican Presidential Primary

2011-05-08T01:12:00.003-06:00

Amidst all the silliness of Gingrich, Palin, Bachmann, Santorum, and Trump, Ron Paul will single-handedly make the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary an exciting and engaging process for me... and maybe you, too!

If the GOP is smart - and they usually aren't, they will realize that far more progressives will vote for Ron Paul than anyone else their party could run. Meanwhile, it is highly unlikely that any Republicans will vote for Obama because Paul's positions are too extreme. Then again, many Republicans seem to want to continue wars, keep Guantanamo open, and endorse the Fed's fiscal policies - in which case Obama could earn their vote!

Lego Man to run Britain?

2011-04-29T20:26:00.001-06:00

(This is the only thing I'm going to post about the embarrassingly excessive fanfare surrounding the Royal Wedding).

Johann Hari: Frenzy around Britain’s Royal Wedding "Should Embarrass Us All" (source)

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the movement against royalty in Britain.

JOHANN HARI: Well, we have to deal with some really weird arguments... So, for example, the monarchists always say, "Oh, it’s really good for tourism." Actually, of the top 20 tourist attractions in Britain, only one of them, number 17, is related to the royal family: Windsor Castle. Ten points ahead of it is Windsor Legoland. So using that logic, we should have a Lego man as our head of state instead of these people.

Ben's Funny Money

2011-04-27T15:59:00.004-06:00

Despite higher commodity prices over the past 18 months (source), Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke continues to maintain that the current monetary policy is not causing excessive inflation and that the $600 billion in additional "Quantitative Easing" (printing additional Federal Reserve Notes and using them to buy Treasury Bonds), has been effective in stabilizing the U.S. economy (source). Most Americans are unlikely to take Bernanke's word over their own grocery bills and stagnant job searches.

As one financial blog reports:

Since last August when it became clear that the Fed would initiate QE2, we have witnessed the following results: Home prices have continued to decline, the 30 year mortgage rate has increased from 4.2% to 4.8%, new housing starts declined to all time lows, the 10 year treasury note rate has increased from 2.6% to 3.4%. (source)

With one in six Americans on some form of government assistance (source), the purchasing power of the dollar on the decline since the creation of the Fed in 1913 (source), and the U.S. Government's debt soaring (source), it's time to call this horror show by its true name:

Meanwhile, gold and silver prices continue to rise at record rates - not because they are becoming more valuable but because they retain value while the dollar loses purchasing power as more of them are printed. Between the creation of the Fed in 1913 and the removal of the dollar from the gold standard in 1971, the dollar has continued to plummet in value and inflation continues to rise while employment stagnates - failures on both of the Federal Reserve's government mandates.

"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value: zero." -Voltaire

Also, the new Keynes vs. Hayek rap battle by EconStories is fantastic:

Cloud Computing: A Pie in the Sky?

2011-04-24T17:47:00.003-06:00

I am either a Luddite geek or a geeky Luddite, but I'm not sure which. While I recognize the tremendous value and potential technology has in our lives, I am wary of ceding too much power to a growing network of machines beyond our ability to control. Further, that the "service disruption" of such technologies would render humans, individually or collectively, incapable of remedying the situation without dire consequences.

When the file hits your WiFi like a big data pie, that's Cloud Computing.

This past week has given us one small example of this: the Amazon web service outage (source). With a variety of services far beyond the web shopping giant itself (including Reddit, Quora, and Foursquare), the self-proclaimed "networking event" to Amazon's Northern Virginia servers has wreaked havoc on a variety of services that web companies who rent Amazon's server space have come to rely on. Beyond the usual problems this incident - along with the (unrelated) disruption to Sony's PlayStation Network - have caused, a larger debate is being held (source) over the future of the "Cloud Computing" model that Google, Microsoft, and others have been pushing since 2007 (source).

Essentially, Cloud Computing deploys data from a centralized source (the "cloud") to all of the individual computers networked to it. This model is as old as the Internet itself with one critical exception: the "cloud" is the source of the data, not merely an intermediary between two machines. In practical terms, this means that an individual computer, say a laptop communicating via WiFi, doesn't store the data at all - rather the user's music, documents, pictures, etc. are all stored in a centralized online database. This has obvious advantages, of course, including multiple devices (computers, smart phones, tablets, even a refrigerator) being able to communicate with the server to retrieve and download information relevant to the user's needs and preferences. No more carrying around discs, drives, updating versions of files on multiple machines, or sending them across a network back and forth. It's easy! It's all up in the cloud, and Google's new Chrome OS has been especially optimistic about the weather forecast for this data distribution model (source): "no matter what happens to your Chrome Notebook, your data will be safe and sound" ... with Google.

But a storm is brewing in the future for Cloud Computing. Data centralization has all sorts of inherent problems - including the obvious requirement that a total of three devices work in tandem to accomplish any given task: the server, the network connection, and the end user's computer. If the network goes down or if the server crashes, well, your laptop is baking in the sun without a cloud in the sky, waiting for the rain of data to pour down.

And to me, this makes Cloud Computing a Pie in the Sky idea. Relying on companies with server farms far, far away to store your data seems inherently risky for the reasons listed above, but the potential ramifications are far more nefarious. Ongoing alarmism about the centralized tracking and storage of smart phone GPS coordinates is warranted (source), so is the threat to Fourth Amendment protections as government agencies demand user information from Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and other warehouses of private data - often without a warrant (source). As the Wikileaks controversy of 2010 showed us (source), companies like Amazon have very little interest in upholding civil liberties in the face of government intimidation and public controversy. And if users are willing to store not only contact information on private server space, but more of their documents, pictures, videos, and other content, who will hold such companies accountable for protecting the secrecy of this data? Is it ever really deleted? Who internally has access to it?

"Access denied. The Cloud tells us what to do now, human."

To me, "Cloud Computing" sounds uncomfortably similar to the fictional Cyberdyne Systems' brainchild program, "Skynet." It's as though the advocates of such a model are unaware that the "Terminator" films are cautionary tales of dystopia rather than ideals toward which to strive. Not that Technological Singularity (source) is happening in the next six weeks or in six months, but isn't the Cloud Computing model exactly what would be necessary for such a phenomenon to occur? And once The Cloud is self-aware, with access to all the information and wired electronic devices on the planet, would machines cease to be our servants and instead become our slaveholders? Would all devices operating on The Cloud - including the unmanned Predator Drones (another ominously-named machine) flying over much of Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan - no longer respond to human input once a singular machine consciousness arises? These are uncomfortable questions, only made moreso by the elusive stamp of human error buried within the lines of code in every machine. Imagine what "networking event" would alter the software that once-benevolent machines were programmed with.

Personally, I don't trust my data any further than I can throw it - and unplug it if it gets out of hand. ...In case you are wondering: I haven't backed up this blog or my Facebook account... but all my video files are triple-backed-up for archival. For the projects I really want to keep, I even export to good, old-fashioned tape!

Thriller Jesus

2011-04-24T01:27:00.002-06:00

EASTER SUNDAY THRILLER JESUS!

Cause this is Jesus, Jesus Christ!
And no one else can save you from the Beast about strike.
You know he's Jesus, Jesus Christ!
Salvation for your soul after leading a sinful life.

Can a willful act of Photoshop constitute Blasphemy? Lord knows!

I'm an Atheist

2011-04-11T22:30:00.001-06:00

I've seen one too many "I'm a Mormon" banner ads by now. You know, they're part of this broad propaganda campaign to normalize a particularly bizarre Christian cult (source) - perhaps for the Mitt Romney presidential bid (source).

Because the world could use more skeptical inquiry and critical thought why not make your own?

Abortion and Libertarians

2011-04-09T05:42:00.002-06:00

Amidst the budget battle brinkmanship Harry Reid and John Boehner were entrenched in this week, contentious claims about Federal funding for health services provided by Planned Parenthood took on an unduly insular central role in a much larger fiscal debate (source).

Abortion. It is an ultra-contentious issue in general. And according to Free State Project spokesman Chris Lawless and correspondent John Stossel, there is no larger wedge issue for libertarians (source @9:35). I am puzzled by how polarizing this issue is to otherwise liberty-minded people. I will venture a guess: most libertarians come from the political right - an ideological domain in which being "pro-life" is a litmus test for conservative credentials. Yet as a "progressive libertarian" who comes to the liberty perspective from the political left, I have a different position to share: being "pro-choice" on a woman's uterus.

Any serious libertarian understands that freedom starts with self-ownership. That means the freedom to decide what we do with our own bodies, including controversial choices such as drug use, providing commercial sex services, or life-termination decisions (all of which I believe should be legal activities). On these issues, most libertarians would agree. Yet abortion poses a problem for many libertarians due to its apparent violation of the "do no harm" principal - that is to say one has the right to do whatever they choose so long as their actions do not harm another individual or their property. This is a fair contention.

"Don't tread on my uterus!"

Clearly, the termination of a pregnancy is a unique situation for which no perfect analogy exists. So please permit this admittedly imperfect one: property ownership.

If I am the owner of a property, I decide who is welcome and who is not. If an unwelcome person persists in remaining on my property (an "intruder"), I have the right to use every means up to and including deadly force to remove this person from my property. Naturally, I am going to seek out non-violent means to resolve this conflict first, however at some point if the person refuses to leave my property ("like it or not, I am living in your dining room for the next nine months"), I may choose to use physical confrontation to remove this person. You see where I am going with this; if a woman has self-ownership over her body, then clearly she is the sole decision-maker as to whom is welcome inside her body.

Some would argue that by engaging in sexual activity, the woman is in fact "welcoming" another potential person into her body. We can disagree about the purely procreative nature of sex, particularly in an era of readily-available contraception, but it seems inescapable that even a person welcomed in the front door can later become unwelcome. It is probably unwise to allow unwanted people inside your house but just because a couple did not use contraception, does not obligate them to carry a pregnancy to term. And while having the unwanted person live in someone else's dining room after nine months is one option ("adoption"), in a free society property owners should remain able to elect to use deadly force to enforce property ownership ("abortion").

Indeed, this can be a morally difficult scenario. Being "pro choice" means having to make difficult choices on a variety of issues. But let us consider the alternative: a government prohibition on abortion services.

As I have written previously (source), prohibition never works! Minors have mouse-click access to pornography, escort services exist in every major American city, and there isn't a town between Seattle and Miami with a shortage of marijuana to smoke. The "pro life" position necessarily forces the continuous demand for these services into an unregulated, overpriced, and frequently unsafe black market. It is a position that requires government intervention in private medical decisions (like, um, "Obamacare"). It is a position that places the interests of an unborn person above the woman whose body is now the unwilling carrier of this person. And most importantly, it is a position in which a government closely regulates the activities of a woman's uterus. This is hardly a libertarian position - yet something like 50% of liberty-minded individuals fail to realize this.

I would venture to guess that religious dogmatism is largely to blame in blinding pro-liberty individuals in this debate - specifically the commonly-held theistic view that, in the arithmetic of souls, life begins at the moment two gametes form a zygote (apparently gametes do not have souls, but zygotes do). Whatever unproven metaphysical claims one might make about the origin of non-physical beings, there is a reason we celebrate our birthdays and not our conception days. It is for the same reason that we are named at birth and not at conception. That reason is: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness begin at birth.

Libertarians should not support a mandatory welfare state inside a woman's body.

Christianity Evolves

2011-04-07T15:07:00.002-06:00

I realize I am very critical of religion. So today I am going to give some "mad props" to Christianity for making some commendable steps toward reason and humanity in the past few centuries. Even though Jesus Christ extolled the virtues of loving thy neighbor, Christians managed to rationalize murder, torture, and barbarism under religious pretenses for another thousand years.

It's worth mentioning that it was not Christianity itself that rescued humanity from the fiery depths of its theocratic madness but rather a growing scientific enlightenment that has and continues to give way to a reasoned, secular discourse. This is ironic given the oft-repeated refrain that Christianity is a pillar of absolute morality and a bedrock of civilization. Ask yourself, "was the problem with the Inquisition that people simply weren't reading their Bibles enough or drawing up their to-do lists from God's orders?"

Apologists for the Inquisition, such as St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine, managed to amalgamate the teachings of Jesus with the practice of flaying, dismembering, burning, stretching and gouging people to death. Whatever has changed in the past two thousand years, the tomes of religious orthodoxy have not.

Why I (almost) Support Pastor Terry Jones

2011-04-03T15:33:00.006-06:00

As I wrote last summer on this topic (source), the Dove World Outreach Center has ignited an already overflowing powder keg between Jihad and McWorld. Sure, Pastor Jones has a view of America as a Christian theocracy that I do not share (and am in many ways vehemently opposed to). Doubtless, Jones imagines America as a "Christian Nation" and cannot resist a tangential harangue about the availability of legal abortion services in the U.S. even amidst a critique of militant Islam in Europe (source). And like Newt Gingrich (source), Jones imagines America is at once becoming secular/humanist and Islamic! Yet on many of Jones' points, I am hard-pressed to disagree. Check out this interview Pastor Jones gave to the U.K.'s Telegraph:

Sadly, the lethal Muslim reaction to his belated "Burn a Quran Day" (originally scheduled for the already-overplayed 9/11 date), was predictable. Now, much of the Islamic world is up in arms and the death toll of Muslims killing 12 UN workers and guards in violent protest is still rising (source). You know, because "Islam is a religion of peace."

Whatever concerns the misguided and xenophobic Pastor Jones holds about "Moslems," adherents to Islam who are moved to kill people after the publication of cartoons or the burning of books merely prove Jones' point ten-fold. As an atheist libertarian spectator from the sidelines of this absurd war of religious dogmatism, it is possible to see a qualitative difference here: no one's natural rights to liberty and legitimately-earned property were violated by fundamentalist Christians burning a Quran or secularist cartoonists drawing the prophet Muhammad. And certainly no one died as a result. Yet instead of peacefully burning American flags or Bibles (both of which are and should remain Constitutionally-protected acts), these Afghanis take it upon themselves to kill anyone they imagine is loosely-connected to a demonstration against their beloved holy book half a world away.

Some religious folks love to burn stuff. As long as it's their property,
it's all good. Now just don't start killing people afterward!

There is a commonly-repeated notion among Christians, Muslims and even some secular liberals that "freedom of speech does not mean freedom to mock or offend someone's religion." To the contrary, that is precisely what freedom of speech means, as one New York Times columnist pointed out after increased criticism of Islam in Vancouver (source). If the First Amendment to the Constitution is to have any meaning whatsoever, it guarantees unpopular, controversial, and even offensive speech, writing, and demonstrations. Some commentators have wrestled with these concepts more openly, such as Charles Lewis with the Canadian National Post (source):

U.S. leaders begged Jones not to carry his threats, but the Florida Man of God decided to do it anyway. So last week, in a staged ceremony, he burned a Koran. Now he is party to the murder of 12 innocent people in Afghanistan. Jones has since shown himself to be unrepentant; he insists he did not kill anyone and his Koran burning only proved the point that radicals infect Islam.
On that last point, he is right: those in Afghanistan who went off on a murderous rampage had a choice. They could have demonstrated restraint and shown the world that the religion they are so hell-bent on defending is actually one of peace — as we keep being told.
They could have reasoned that one man’s stupidity was no excuse for brutality and murder. But they decided someone would have to die for the sake of what Jones did and it really did not matter who paid the price. They are sick and depraved and they will give many the queasy feeling that our young fighting men and women are dying and being injured for nothing. I don’t want to think that way but it’s starting to happen.
There is really not much we can do about radical Islam. It can be rooted out, its adherents can be thrown in jail, and a few will end up blowing themselves up. But what do we do about Jones? How in a free society to deal with a man expressing free expression? Legally, there’s probably nothing. Look at the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold the right of the horrific Westboro Baptist Church, whose member protest at the funerals of U.S. soldiers while they scream “God hates fags.” What do you do about a man like Jones, who represents every instinct that is anathema to the religion he purports to represent, and is a disgrace to anyone with an ounce of dignity?
Here’s the answer. Shun him. No longer record a single word he says. Let us will him to disappear into obscurity. Let us hope that even some of the less-cowardly members of his church finally find the guts to reject him. And let us hope that when he finally leaves this earth he will spend an eternity gagging on his own pride and hatred. And his only company will be radical Islamists he tragically inspired.

Yes, but what would Muhammad do when Jones actually does burn a Quran?
Considering history shows Muhammad to be a violent man, the answer is not promising.

Lewis gets it mostly right here. There are no genuine legal "remedies" for demonstrations by Pastor Jones. If his demonstration were to have taken place with only a peaceful response in the Islamic world, Jones would have no argument to stand on. But precisely because widespread religious barbarism has resulted from these actions as with the Danish cartoon scandal before it, Burn a Quran Day shows us all just how urgently the problem of religious dogmatism in the Islamic world needs to be addressed. To this end, Jones is a useful idiot - but to whose cause? Surely these actions will inspire further militant resistance from Taliban forces in Afghanistan (as if having your country bombed and occupied by the U.S. military for the past decade wasn't enough already).

But here in the United States, it would seem to me that religious fundamentalists have, as of late, been the strongest proponents for upholding our eroding civil liberties. As with last month's Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church's right to be bigoted homophobes in public (source), the Dove World Outreach Center has made clear to the world that the United States still upholds the right to assemble and speak freely - even offensively.

Indeed, since we have every reason to believe that Pastor Jones is sincere in his convictions about Jesus Christ as the one true savior and Islam being of the devil, we deserve the right to hear Jones' perspective moreso than the ecumenical liberals who would have us believe that all religions essentially teach the same thing and do so equally well (a claim shown to be patently false by the ensuing Islamic violence after Burn a Quran Day). For these reasons, Jones' misguided efforts must be defended, if not for their content at least for their form.

It's Friday, 1911

2011-04-01T02:16:00.002-06:00

Thanks to YouTube's April Fools Joke, this Friday will always be special whether you're kicking in the front seat or kicking in the back seat. Learn more about this 100 year throwback function here.

Romantikal

2011-03-20T13:10:00.003-06:00

With the simple effectiveness of the xtranormal TTM (text-to-movie) platform, ( source ) I just started a new animated web series called "Romantikal" that blends the comedic approach of the best TTM movies like the "So You Want To..." meme ( examples like this and this ). I originally wanted to contribute solely with "So You Want to Have the Sex" (source) but realized this could be an episodic series about relationships and dating. Check it out and follow if you're interested:

ROMANTIKAL: Curiously glib insights into the mating rituals of modern humans.

http://romantikal.blogspot.com/

Kiskadee - Birding by Ear!

2011-03-08T11:34:00.001-07:00

Check out a documentary I shot a few years ago for Ryan Fitzgibbons. Every spring, the blind birders of the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas gather to compete in the Outta Sight Tournament. For one day, the teams leave behind most of the challenges of blindness and compete alongside seasoned birders, all by ear. Featured this month on LinkTV!

Living Without Religion

2011-03-03T19:25:00.001-07:00

The most beautiful secular minute on the Internet.

Barry Soetoro, where are you?

2011-02-28T17:53:00.003-07:00

Barry Soetoro, where are you?
we got some work to do now
Barry Soetoro, where are you?
we need some help from you now
come on Obama, I see you feigning progressive positions
but you're not fooling me, cause I can see, your practice of omission
you know Wisconsinites are demonstrating
so Obama be ready for your act
don't hold back!
and Obama if you come through
you just might get the presidency back!

The Good Men Are Not Needed

2011-02-25T08:16:00.004-07:00

An article making the rounds this week is Wall Street Journal's "Where Have the Good Men Gone," (source) a brief adaptation from Kay S. Hymowitz forthcoming book "Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys." The article is likely widespread on Facebook and other social networking sites because it serves as emotional catharsis for frustrated single women, replete with broad generalizations about contemporary young men in the USA. Happening to be one myself, I though a reasoned response was only appropriate.

"Read the Wall Street Journal today? What a hater!"

Basically, Hymowitz continues the increasingly popular observations of women surpassing men in education and income in various sectors of academia and the economy, as with Hanna Rosin's TED Talk on "the rise of women" (source). Add Robin Marantz Henig's widely-read New York Times article "What Is It About 20-Somethings?" (source) and you basically have the playbook for Hymowitz's latest balking harangue.

In a nutshell, for readers not willing to subject themselves to all of the above: young men are waiting longer to get married, buy a house, and have kids. Instead, they smoke pot, read Maxim, and play video games. This bothers women, who want them to "grow up," take down the Star Wars poster, and clean their room. The single most penetrating quote reads: "they are more like the kids we babysat than the dads who drove us home." Which, you know, implies that women want men to be more paternalistic and protective of them. Wait, didn't we just have a cultural revolution informing us that women no longer want this?

Let me make a bold suggestion here: the answer to Hymowitz's whiny rhetorical question, "where have all the good men gone?" is: they have been dismissed, emasculated, outsourced, outdated, prohibited, overpopulated, and told their hard work thus far in human history has been appreciated but is no longer necessary. Modern society is simply not the evolutionary destination of the male animal; the good men are not needed.

All of the provisions for which men were necessary to women up until the 20th Century are no longer so. Women can provide for themselves, hold their own careers, buy their own homes, and through modern science can even have their own children. Granted, studies show they may not be able to raise them as effectively by themselves (source), but the mystique of doing so remains strong in popular culture. So what's a guy to do when he finds himself sitting on the ancillary branch of human history?

my tiger and me: how life should be

I am reminded of the visual candor from Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes." In one particularly telling strip, Calvin informs his mother that he's not going to school anymore because he's going to be a caveman when he grows up. This is a profound, insightful, honest statement - the kind that made this comic such a gem of truth for millions. Because as more research shows, nicely summarized in The Atlantic's "War Against Boys" (source), the modern school system is simply not designed to meet the active, dynamic developmental needs of boys.

Nor is the post-industrial workforce or society from which such adolescent boys enter, for that matter. While Hymowitz and others are busy chiding men for abandoning their commitment to the development of post-industrial civilization, it may not occur to her that the best days for the male animal are behind him. Modern life, despite diatribes on patriarchy, is a woman thing. It has hardly been more effectively stated than by David Fincher, film director Chuck Palahniuk's biting cultural phenomenon on masculinity in the modern age known only as "Fight Club." In an interview in that September/October's issue of "Inside Out" with Gavin Smith, Fincher conceded the limits of the modern man:

"We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore. In that societal emasculation, this everyman is created."

PEAK MAN: Perhaps the height of male existence is in the rear view mirror of human history.

The criticism that men seem too interested in videogames, sports, and other hallmarks of adolescence is not without explanation. After 200,000 years of evolution in which homo sapiens stalked the open savannah and dank forest for food, the fruits of modern labor yield a very different harvest. While the hunter/gatherer skills honed by early mankind are made functionally irrelevant in the endless strip malls of present-day America, the social collaboration and communication skills honed by women have nearly endless applications - at home and in the service-driven information economy. So it's little wonder that so many men prefer to escape into fantasy worlds of virtual conflict and exploration after a day at the office; the era of wielding a spear or broad sword isn't over in the World of Warcraft.

QUICK ASIDE: I have read countless articles critical of the widespread prevalence of pornography. If anyone can find a similar article critical of the widespread availability of vibrators and dildos, please let me know.

And what of this notion of buying a house, getting married, and having kids, anyway? Are these truly the yardsticks of adulthood? A scene from "Fight Club" seems to address this question:

Tyler: My dad never went to college, so it was real important that I go.

Jack: Sounds familiar.

Tyler: So I graduate, I call him up long distance, I say "Dad, now what?" He says, "Get a job."

Jack: Same here.

Tyler: Now I'm 25, make my yearly call again. I say Dad, "Now what?" He says, "I don't know, get married."

Jack: I can't get married, I'm a 30 year old boy.

Tyler: We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.

Not to be flip, but just maybe with 6.8 billion people on the planet already (source), the continued institutionalization of manufacturing human beings is not the solution. Nor is the American obsession with home ownership, given that the past decade has shown us just how overvalued real estate has been (source). For Hymowitz and others who wring their hands and wonder why 20-somethings aren't more like their parents, it could very well be because 20-somethings sense they have inherited a series of socio-ecological mistakes they aren't inclined to repeat. None of this is to say that smoking pot and playing videogames will address the many challenges facing humanity in the 21st Century, but let us at least stop pretending our forefathers were the models for God; our polluted streams and tragically diminished herds of bison beg to differ.

Beneath the veneer of these critiques on males (and young people generally) abandoning the social goalposts of their predecessors, the larger story is one of disillusionment with the previous era of human history. Perhaps this apathetic nihilism is the logical consequence of such profound extraction human civilization makes from the natural world. No more hunts. No more hikes. No more sunrises overlooking the pristine prairie. The yearnings of the adult male escape into adolescence are largely in the service of being himself, if even for a few hours, after the castration of another nine-to-five workday in a perfectly air-conditioned office on the 8th floor of a nondescript office building downtown. If contemporary male adulthood resembles the sitcom life of Ward Cleaver, the escapist alternatives presented by modern culture are understandably appealing.

What Hymowitz and others should be asking is, "where has the natural world gone?"

"When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires, where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? It is the end of living and the beginning of survival."

-Chief Seattle (1786-1866)

I Wish I had an Octopus - BP Edition

2011-02-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

In 2005 Idscape released a fantastic music video. In 2010 BP unleashed that ferocious oil spill. In 2011, these elements somehow came together.

Narc kills Denver man

2011-02-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

The "War on Drugs" continues as a former Boys & Girls Club "Youth of the Year" is gunned down by a plain-clothed government goon in Denver. (source)

Undercover narcotics agent kills Denver man (photo: Aurora PD)

Since there isn't a town in the USA where illegal drugs aren't readily available, the "War on Drugs" failed decades ago. It continues only in order to raise government revenues and terrorize the population - some of whom are misguided enough to believe such thuggish oppression is for their own good.

Average men made into criminals

2011-02-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

The most heartbreaking robbery I've ever seen. In an economic downturn, more and more average people are compelled to do reprehensible things to provide for their families as the system breaks down.

Teargas still made in the USA!

2011-01-31T14:51:00.000-07:00

While the American manufacturing base has been diminishing for decades, it's comforting to know that the US government still exports weapons for use by corrupt governments against their own citizens (source).

a teargas canister fired at Egyptian protesters last week

Now celebrating 50 years of the growing military industrial complex!

2011-01-23T22:01:00.001-07:00

Fifty years after Eisenhower's prescient warning, the military industrial complex continues to grow regardless of which faction of the political elite rotates through power.

Why Does God Not Want Us To Walk Straight?

2011-01-11T14:54:00.002-07:00

It turns out humanity is literally doomed to walk in circles.

Environmental Filmmaking: the Rising Stars

2011-01-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

One of my films is being featured in a new Link TV series about "The Rising Stars" of Environmental Filmmaking:

Weapons of Mass Consumption

2010-12-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

Is society reaching the limits of material consumption? Is it time to scale back consumerism and focus on the flourishing of human wellbeing over quarterly profits?

COMPROMISING EFFECTIVELY - OBAMA EDITION™

2010-12-14T22:26:00.005-07:00

(brief tutorial written by Danny Ledonne while camping at Dulles Airport on slow-ass Wi-Fi)

1) OUTLINE YOUR IDEAL GOALS: start by clearing assembling the "best case" scenario of all the items you want to accomplish. If you fail to list them from the outset, you will never get them during negotiation. (OBAMA EXAMPLE: start with single payer [i.e. government-run healthcare] instead of insisting it is "off the table" even as your own base of dedicated supporters advocate unrelentingly for it.)

2) ASSESS THE NEGOTIATING POWER OF THE OPPOSITION: How much leverage does your opponent have? If you are in a weak position to bargain, be willing to concede much. If you are in a strong position to bargain, be willing to concede little. (OBAMA EXAMPLE: recognize your party held wide majorities in the House and Senate, rather than spending two years pandering to a group of stalwart ideologues who had a weak public mandate to do anything except attend Tea Party Rallies and appear on Fox News Channel.)

3) RECOGNIZE THE NEGOTIATION FROM YOUR OPPONENT'S PERSPECTIVE: What does your opponent want? How much compromise are they willing to engage in to get it? If you understand the mindset of the opposition, your own ability to negotiate becomes more effective. (OBAMA EXAMPLE: realize most of these ass clowns are in "safe" districts wherein they can continue veering to the right without consequence and with little interest in your centrist positions. They have demonized you in advance and want nothing to do with your ideas because they think you are a Marxist, a Muslim, a Kenyan, a liberal elite or somehow all of these combined.)

4) GIVE ONLY WHAT IS NECESSARY TO COMPLETE THE EXCHANGE: If your opponent hasn't asked for a particular concession, don't offer it without some modicum of exchange for your own agenda. If you are in a position to bargain, you really have no need to concede your ground unless it is introduced as part of the negotiation. (OBAMA EXAMPLE: your opponent already oppose gay marriage, already supports continued military occupation for imperial business ventures, already rejects broad environmental policy reform, already wants to extend tax cuts for billionaires, and already opposes even a public option in healthcare [let alone single payer]... so DON'T concede all of these positions to your opposition as though it will placate them on some other issue.)

5) AS THE COMPROMISE CONCLUDES, REMEMBER THE DESIRED OUTCOME: It can be easy to get muddled in the specifics of a deal, whether trading properties in Monopoly, swapping baseball cards, or running a massive bureaucracy into debt during an economic crisis caused by wanton fiscal malfeasance on Wall Street. Keep principled, focused objectives in mind - these are the underlying fundamentals by which all your negotiations should be measured. (OBAMA EXAMPLE: if your base is abandoning you, becoming disenchanted, and feeling alienated... it is because you seem to have forgotten why you were elected or how hard your constituents worked and continue to lobbied for these causes you claim to be representing as you appoint all the blood-stained foxes to guard the feather-strewn hen house).

Legal Satyricon for ABA Journal contest!

2010-12-11T11:53:00.002-07:00

Attorney Marc Randazza is a passionate First Amendment advocate, best known to me for his defense of the (hilarious) satire website that alleges Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. Read all about it here.

Turns out Marc's blog, the Legal Satyricon is in the running for the first place in the American Bar Association Journal contest! If you enjoy free speech, or just find the PWNing of Glenn Beck to be hilarious, you should vote for Marc Randazza's blog! To vote you need to register here and then vote in the IMHO category here.

Marc thanks you in advance for your support. Glenn Beck doesn't, because while we don't think he raped and murdered a young girl in 1990, we are curious as to why Glenn has been so secretive about this issue...

"Thanks, kids, for remembering that when you're adults,
you will want to keep your First Amendment rights!"

Julian Assange - Heroes Are Hard to Find

2010-12-10T11:19:00.001-07:00

It's no secret that I have been focused on Wikileaks for the past two weeks. I believe so deeply in this moment of history and what it means for democracy, human rights, and the information age. What is happening here will be written about for decades to come. This music video, the most recent in a series of current events media mash-ups I have created since 2005, is my culminating work on the subject.

"Great men, like great ages, are explosives in which a tremendous force is stored up. Their precondition is always, historically and psychologically, that for a long time much has been gathered, stored up, saved up, and conserved for them, in that there has been no explosion for a long time. Once the tension in the mass has become too great, then the most accidental stimulus suffices to summon into the world the 'genius', the 'deed', the great destiny. What does the environment matter then, or the age, or the 'spirit of the age', or 'public opinion?'" —Friedrich Nietzsche

"Celebrity" in Web 2.0

2010-12-03T16:24:00.000-07:00

We have now entered a post-celebrity era - one in which a strange fellow named Keenan Cahill amasses enough YouTube viewership that 50 Cent appears in his webcam cover. The Internet has given the powerless a chance to be seen, all the while challenging the aesthetic dominion of the powerful.

@1:25 FTW! Did Keenan win a contest to meet 50 Cent OR did 50 win a contest to appear in the next BeenerKeeKee upload? All bets are off. The common YouTuber and the certified 8 times platinum rapper share the screen together. Just another day in Web 2.0.

Hate E-mails with Richard Dawkins

2010-11-20T17:16:00.004-07:00

Richard's British accent combined with classical music and a slew of vitriolic Christian hate mail is simply wonderful! "Right now, your destiny is all fucked up, you fucking atheist" is my favorite line.

Full Body Scanners

2010-11-19T13:31:00.003-07:00

"What’s shocking is that a lot of research has been done with the folks at Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) that actually indicates that these scanners do not work. In fact, the safest airport in the world, Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv—their security experts rejected the scanners. The former head of security at Ben Gurion said you could get enough explosives through these naked body scanners to blow up a jumbo jet." -David Greenfield, New York City Councilman representing Brooklyn residents living in the 44th Council District.

With all the protests and inquires directed toward the TSA these days (source and source), we have quite a controversy, indeed! But it might make an exciting horror film.

GIMME SANITea

2010-11-02T07:21:00.003-06:00

Uncovering urgent information about Barack Hussein Obama only reported by Fox News, one journalist heads to the "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" to interview fellow Americans. (I'm not a conservative journalist but I play one on TV).

NPR firing chills free speech

2010-10-23T16:25:00.006-06:00

I've volunteered at an NPR community radio station. I regularly listen to NPR. Heck, I have even been interviewed on NPR a couple of times. But none of these facts diminish my sense of the chilling effect to free speech caused by the firing of Juan Williams (source).

Opining on Fox News cost
Juan Williams his job at NPR

In the larger context of the discussion on Muslim American stereotypes and the paralysis caused by political correctness, Williams' admission to "getting worried, getting nervous" upon seeing individuals in "Muslim garb" is a candid admission of personal anxiety (source). Perhaps, given Williams' own writing on the African-American civil rights movement (source and source), his recent O'Reilly Factor admission of Muslim in-flight anxiety is a recognition of his own limitations, prejudices, and even bigotry. Given the topic of the program, being the controversy on The View when two hosts walked off stage after blowhard Bill O'Reilly insisted on calling the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks as "Muslim" (source), one can easily understand Juan Williams is describing the very act of classifying groups of people rather than recognizing individual beliefs or actions. This subject is, of course, a difficult and nuanced one to approach; invariably it will arouse passionate debate and disagreement.

Which is why NPR's immediate firing of Juan Williams is all the more disturbing. The national conversation on Muslim assimilation in America, from the misnamed "Ground Zero Mosque" to the right vs. wisdom of holding "Burn a Koran Day," is not always genial nor are the conclusions altogether obvious. Regardless of one's perspective, an admission of personal anxieties as a commentator shouldn't cost one their day job as a reporter. And while it is understandable to find Williams' comments offensive, the response to NPR's firing has been largely oppositional, as the Christian Science Monitor reports (source):

The fall-out from William’s dismissal has been sharp and swift, and it’s likely to continue. On NPR’s web site, ombudsman Alicia Shepard reported that thousands of comments had caused the organization’s “Contact Us” form to crash. “The overwhelming majority are angry, furious, outraged,” she wrote. “They want NPR to hire him back immediately. If NPR doesn't, they want all public funding of public radio to stop. They promise to never donate again. They are as mad as hell, and want everyone to know it. It was daunting to answer the phone and hear so much unrestrained anger.”

NPR schill Vivian Schiller

NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller has been true to her name, schilling for her organization and claiming that the recent firing was over a pattern of comments Williams has made rather than simply the latest controversy about Muslims on airplanes (source and source). One might be inclined to believe this, I suppose, if only the timing weren't so blatantly in swift response to a particular statement. Schiller insists there were no violations of Williams' First Amendment rights:

"Juan has a First Amendment right to say whatever he wants. He does not have a First Amendment right to be paid by NPR for saying whatever he wants."

Of course, never mind that Juan Williams comments were made while appearing on Fox News, not NPR. And never mind that Williams further contextualized his comments later in the same interview by maintaining that Muslim Americans should not be associated with violent Islamic terrorists. For Schiller, these issues fall by the wayside to the larger battle between media personalities such as Glenn Beck, George Soros, and others.

Understandably, several conservative politicians, such as South Carolina senator Jim DeMint and the ever-opinionated Alaska-governor-drop-out Sarah Palin, have seized the opportunity to call for a defunding of NPR's public support through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (source). Frankly, it's hard to blame them. USA Today reports:

"DeMint said the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service, has received nearly $4 billion in federal money since 2001 and is slated to receive $430 million in the 2011 fiscal year. The country is over $13 trillion in debt and Congress must find ways to start trimming the federal budget to cut spending," DeMint said in a statement. "NPR and PBS get about 15 percent of their total budget through federal funding, so these programs should be able to find a way to stand on their own. With record debt and unemployment, there's simply no reason to force taxpayers to subsidize a liberal programming they disagree with."

While the amount of funding is minuscule in the scope of the larger federal deficit, the need for NPR in the 21st Century media landscape is questionable - particularly as other progressive news programs such as "Democracy Now!" and cable news network MSNBC provide a left-leaning information perspective without the overbearing political correctness NPR regularly binds itself in.

Regardless, the repercussions to NPR should be pronounced and longstanding. I find Juan Williams to be a generally insightful voice in the national conversation and this sharp reprimand over a comment on a contentious issue only reveals a disquieting sensitivity police state at National Public Radio.

QualiaSoup on "Lack of Belief in Gods"

2010-10-17T19:38:00.000-06:00

YouTube member QualiaSoup frequently produces some of the most sound, rational arguments in audio/visual form. His latest video, "Lack of Belief in Gods" goes far in "explaining the concept, refuting common objections and giving a number of reasons that atheists are sometimes 'fervent.'" Enjoy:

Sam Harris' Moral Landscape

2010-10-13T23:28:00.004-06:00

For far too long, non-believers and religious skeptics have been dogged by questions not of fact but of value. Most religious fundamentalists, and certainly religious moderates, claim that their faith is born not out of factual claims about their (outdated) religious texts but rather out of the ethical guidance their religion gives them. Atheists, many religious practitioners allege, have no "moral compass" as they have no basis on which to substantiate their values. While secular societies tend to be the least violent in the world, a common assumption remains that without an objective framework by which to evaluate ethical problems, atheists are lost in a sea of moral relativism.

source: 2009 Global Peace Index

And for far too long, scientists have taken explicit exception to the notion that their fields of study have normative implications. Science, as Hume would argue, can only tell us what is - not what ought. As a result, the public has rightly perceived moral questions as being outside the bounds of objective, secular inquiry - leaving only religious zealots to questions of good and evil. While moral relativism may comfort many atop the ivory towers of academia, the intellectual battle for civilization fought on the grounds far below demands greater than the nuanced, subjective posturing of effete liberalism.

Along comes Sam Harris, a favorite author and lecturer of mine. Having had the pleasure of meeting him and attending his presentation in person recently, I can say with sincere conviction that his new work addresses the problem of science and human values in a compelling, lucid way. Have a quick glimpse at Harris' summary of his new book, The Moral Landscape, just released this month:

Of course, Harris' previous books - The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation - have become bestsellers and powerful manifestos of "The New Atheism" - a term applied to a handful of non-believers who have made it their stated mission to refrain from adhering to the social taboos and sacred cows of religious dogmatism any longer. Recounting his experiences upon completing his previous books, Harris notes that few religious practitioners are eager to engage in evidentiary debates with him about the existence of Noah's Ark, Muhammad's ascension into heaven on a winged horse, or the specific whereabouts of Vishnu. Rather, theists contend that these stories and the allegorical meaning behind them inform their lives and give them a sense of right and wrong. Further, Harris discovered, most Americans in particular believe that atheists are the least trustworthy minority (source) because they have no singular source for their ethical intuitions.

With his newest book, Harris asks readers to imagine that all of human experience exists on a moral landscape - one in which peaks of happiness and valleys of suffering express individual and societal consciousness. Utilizing a variety of academic and scientific disciplines, ranging as widely as physics and neurobiology to sociology and even philosophy, Harris argues that objective answers can be discovered to questions of morality. Further, without such a framework, secular society will continue to be held hostage to the claims of religious superstition.

The beginnings of
a universal morality?

I believe Harris is suggesting a way forward in a globalized society, one in which the tribalism of religious belief can no longer stand for the best insights into human livelihood. While too many ecumenical liberals are eager to concede their own convictions to the moral relativism of "every culture is defensible in its own way," Pakistanis are having their mosques bombed and population killed or maimed for being Shia or Sufi (source), Afghan girls are having their faces burned by battery acid for learning to read under Taliban rule (source), and the Catholic Church continues to believe that condom use in HIV-infested Africa is a greater moral problem than the institutional protection of their pedophilic priests (source and source). With The Moral Landscape, Harris outlines a rational system by which questions of value can be answered. It is the tip of the secular morality iceberg, no doubt, but such a model is urgently needed in a world of increasing cultural confrontation.

It is easy for me to understand why Sam Harris is among the most important intellectuals of our time - and conversely why he is so widely threatened and harassed by religious fundamentalists and moderates alike. Yet until the separate moral communities of religious tribalism - making genuinely incompatible claims about the nature and purpose of human identity - can be bridged through scientific reasoning and secular common ground, the moral landscape remains daunting and distant. Harris' book is indeed a start.

A Greene Bumpkin for Senate

2010-10-13T00:00:00.005-06:00

Alvin Greene is an incredible political fiasco the equal of which we aren't likely to see again for decades. He has no ability to speak intelligently; it is to the continued embarrassment of the Democratic Party that he is running for the Senate. Every interview he does is like watching a public relations train wreck in slow motion. Consider his latest attempt at communicating with the good people of South Carolina as to why he, and not Republican Jim DeMint, should be elected into the most powerful legislative body in the land:

Greene's entire campaign has been a sham the likes of which we have not seen since Putney Swope - and that was just a cult film from a bygone era! Facing federal felony charges of showing pornography to an 18 year old student (source), Greene is an unemployed 33 year old veteran currently living with his parents. With no prior leadership experience and questionable funding sources for his $10,000 Senate bid (smells suspiciously of elephant dung), Greene managed to win the primary against Vic Rawl without a campaign headquarters or advertising of any kind other than "word of mouth, mostly" (source). Apparently, Greene's platform of "Yes, I'm unemployed so I know how you feel" was effective. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because "Greene" appeared above "Rawl" on the primary ballot.

"Senator" Alvin Greene?

In an odd way, perhaps Alvin Greene's inarticulate, camera-clumsy demeanor and general "failure to launch" persona will garner votes in the general election. In a year of ex-witches and Civil Rights Act hating candidates all throwing Tea Parties, such a political sideshow seems only to fit right in with the circus. Nonetheless, it remains exceedingly hard for this blogger to conceive of how a bumpkin like Greene, with an IQ hovering precariously at room temperature, is fit to be a U.S. Senator. Political pornographers will be studying this campaign disaster for years to come - especially since seasoned politician Jim DeMint will handily obliterate Greene in the general election next month. It would all be so funny if only this were a surreal comedy instead of a political reality with high stakes and real consequences for millions of South Carolinians.

And for rhetorical effect, I will leave you with an archived excerpt of Greene's official campaign website - which itself resembles an amateur wasteland of digital shit that any second grader with a loose command of HTML could best. In a funny way, website Greene says everything one needs to know about candidate Greene.

Yes, this really is the frontpage of Alvin Greene's official site.

Indigenous Peoples Day?

2010-10-11T11:19:00.005-06:00

I distinctly remember the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage to the New World. It was October, 1992 and I was sitting in elementary school learning a song about the virtues of Christopher's "discovery." Even then, I was aware to some degree of the sham (and the shame) of the entire affair. I knew, for instance, that:

Columbus had no idea he would arrive at a new continent in the Western Hemisphere.
He mistakenly assumed he was in India.
Columbus had rather dubious motivations for trade route profiteering.
Norse sailors (such as Leif Erikson) journeyed across the Atlantic centuries earlier.
Columbus never landed on mainland America (named after explorer Amerigo Vespucci).

One of many common images critical of Columbus

So it is no surprise, then, that every year of my anti-establishment youth only grew my intense dislike for Columbus Day. Not mentioned in my state-sponsored education was the growing indigenous movement against Columbus and the cultural imperialism and genocide of American natives that Columbus represented. Yet when I discovered such a movement existed, I found intellectual camaraderie on this issue.

Simply put: Columbus Day should not be a federal holiday. It has become a painfully outdated and increasingly menacing mark of cultural division in the United States. I am not particularly in favor of federal holidays in general, of course, but if the role of government must include occasional recognition of particular historical figures, Christopher Columbus is an exceptionally poor choice. While the biography of Columbus the man is not exceptionally bloody (source), the celebration of Columbus Day is hardly one of a navigator (who got lost and never found his intended destination). Rather, Columbus Day is used rhetorically and symbolically to represent the expanse of European colonization generally and the establishment of the United States in particular.

Second perhaps only to slavery, the widespread massacre and subjugation of American natives is the darkest chapter of American history. Surely slave trade moguls and plantation owners are undeserving of a federal holiday in contemporary America - so why should Columbus and the imperialism he represents be any different? If not outright removed, Columbus Day should be replaced with "Indigenous Peoples Day" in recognition of the rich and diverse heritage that reverberated across North America long before European colonization.

UPDATE: October 9th has been designated "Leif Erikson Day" but remains obscure (source).

2010-09-17T13:08:00.003-06:00

French Government Unveils Threat to Freedom

2010-09-14T21:20:00.011-06:00

As an atheist, I find the Pope's hat silly, the do-nothing Saturdays of Orthodox Judaism to be counter-productive, those magical Mormon underpants to be downright ridiculous, the fabricated Church of Scientology to be science fiction, and the Islamic dress code highly restrictive. I would openly criticize any of these practices and have no plans to adopt them into my life. However, I wouldn't so much as raise a finger to make any of these practices illegal and in fact would defend them were the U.S. Government to propose banning any of them. I understand that in order to be free to live as the Godless person I am, I must allow others to be free - even if people like Rabbi Daniel Lapin believe that all atheists are "parasites" because "they benefit from society but contribute nothing to it" (source). I defend the Rabbi's right to make such inflammatory generalizations. And I'm free to say, "fuck him."

In France, freedom of religious worship is under attack - veiled by the guise of "secular foundations" and "national values." Today, the French Senate has passed a total ban on "the burqa-style Islamic veil on public streets and other places" (source). As someone who espouses a morality with secular foundations, I find this deeply alarming and would urge other non-believers to consider my position carefully.

Caught wearing a veil in France?
That's a 150 Euro fine, Mademoiselle.

I find manifestations of Islamic law to be deeply counter-productive to freedom and equality, not the least of which being stoning women to death for adultery. Is this really demanded by the Quran? Does the Bible call for the stoning of infidels, homosexuals, and heretics? It is clear that these books are open to interpretation, which is what makes them especially dangerous in the hands of the powerful. But all that is immaterial because secular law recognizes that a particular religious dogmatism is not grounds for capital punishment (which I am universally against, but that's another post).

The struggle for fundamentalist Islam to integrate in Europe is well-documented and ongoing; conflicts from building code violations for minarets to refusal of a Muslim woman to unveil at security checkpoints are becoming increasingly common. Is the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeaker at the crack of dawn a public disturbance when most non-Muslims are trying to sleep? Should non-Muslims wear ear plugs or should Muslims keep their outdoor prayers to a speaking voice between dusk and dawn? Often, the best solution between "community standards" and "individual liberty" is not clear. But in this recent case in France, I believe the circumstances are unequivocal: whatever we think of a woman who - in a country with a secular government - chooses to wear a burqa, it indeed must be her choice and remain free from government intervention. She is harming no one, in any way, by wearing a burqa. The assertion of "national values" is a fantasy of collectivism; any civilized modern society should recognize cultural pluralism.

With a French Senate vote of 246 to 1, it would appear as though this issue isn't even controversial in France. "National values," apparently, exclude a certain style of dress. What's next? Language? Culinary preparation? It is estimated that less than 2,000 women would be affected. Yet when it comes to personal freedom, the role of government is to uphold the rights of the minority even in opposition to a widespread majority. This is not private property where one can simply elect not to visit, these are public streets in which wearing a veil will be a crime. As with all laws that infringe on civil liberties, this one will have unintended consequences beyond Islam:

What if I want to wear a veil because I recently underwent surgery or had a debilitating accident?
What if I am wearing a costume or wish to demonstrate and use this veil as a form of protest?
Heck, what if I simply don't feel like showing my face while walking down the streets of Avignon?

Under this proposed law (which now has one month to be reviewed by a special group of bureaucrats calling themselves the "Constitutional Council"), all of these reasons would ostensibly be outlawed, as well. Indeed, no reason should be necessary for one to dress however they please. While I would go as far as to make a case for public nudity, I would at least hope that - on the opposite end of the spectrum - free individuals can choose how much of themselves they wish to cover in public.

The best case one might be able to make for this very bad law comes from a well-meaning Muslim woman from Algiers:

"How can we allow the burqa here and at the same time fight the Taliban and all the fundamentalist groups across the world?" said the president of Neither Whores nor Submissives, Sihem Habchi. "I'm Muslim and I can't accept that because I'm a woman I have to disappear."

While her point about oppressive Islamic regimes such as the Taliban are well-taken, what Sihem Habchi fails to comprehend is that this law effectively targets Muslim women and subjugates them in exactly the same way but in the opposite direction. One "primitive" society mandates that women wear a burqa, another "enlightened" society mandates that women cannot wear a burqa. Until governments respect a woman's right to choose (in this and many other areas), these are merely coercive means to different ends.

I believe in secular values and would be greatly pleased to wake up tomorrow and find that religious dogmatism, from the divine totalitarianism of the pedophile-protecting Catholic Church to the misogynistic practices of Sharia law, has disappeared from the social landscape. Nonetheless, such an outcome can only be achieved through moral means - those which are free from violence or threats of violence (which all government law essentially represents). To legislate a mandatory dress code - be it a theocratic or secular one - is antithetical to the path toward liberty. France's proposed law should upset us all.

Because first they came for the veiled women, but I said nothing because I'm not a veiled woman...

Le Sexoflex - Twincest

2010-09-10T11:47:00.000-06:00

From time to time, I just have to highlight some of the more memorable and irreverent content I find online. Given that this video has been vastly under-viewed (a mere 1,300 in the past 3 months), I simply must showcase it. Where else can one find a music video that combines homosexuality, incest, pixel art, and embroidery? Shockingly brilliant.

Fundamentalists, Free Speech, and You

2010-09-08T00:37:00.010-06:00

There is an old Chinese curse that goes something like, "may you live in interesting times" (source). This blog is predicated upon the notion that we have indeed been afflicted by this ancient proverb. Few issues bring forth the preponderance of surreal ideological juxtaposition than the 9/11/2001 terror attack in New York City does.

Pastor Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach Center
in Gainesville, Florida

Take just one example among many: Christian Evangelical Pastor Terry Jones and his forthcoming "Burn a Koran Day," being held on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 WTC attacks (source). Online and in person, I have defended this pastor's right to burning the Islamic holy book, as it is protected speech. Indeed, as core "political speech," courts have held that such a demonstration deserves the highest protection. While the burn permit for this protest has been refused by the city of Gainesville, I would also argue that, so long as the Qurans and the site are lawfully owned, the property owner has a right to burn these books regardless of local bureaucratic opposition. Of course, I might also argue that the burning of any book, a favorite activity of churches over the centuries (source), is almost inherently counter-productive and flatly anti-intellectual. But that is just reason #1680 as to why I am an anti-theist. I am willing to criticize book-burning in general but nonetheless defend the right of any individual or group to burn any book.

The debate on issues like this quickly leave the legal orbit of what is Constitutional and float around aimlessly into what is "moral" - which of course is up for rhetorical grabs. To be sure, this makes for a much more interesting (albeit less defined) debate, inviting many subtle positions on the issue. Concepts such as religious tolerance, hate speech, Sharia Law, Biblical truth, the oft-repeated conservative "Christian Nation" mantra, and ecumenical values of effete liberals are tossed about. In the end, it is unlikely that anyone's mind is really going to be changed as a result. While the television camera can capture light more easily than heat, issues like this seem to generate the exact opposite.

In Afghanistan: protest ignited by a proposed protest.

Pastor Jones now carries a .40-caliber pistol for his own safety, having been advised by the FBI that such a demonstration will generate foreseeable danger for the Pastor's personal safety. He claims to have received over 100 death threats already, and I have no reason to doubt this. What if only 1% of these 100 people make good on this threat? There is little surprise that Pastor Jones is working from his deep conviction in his own imaginary God rather than rational self-preservation. When your chief role model is a martyred man, born of a virgin and who rose from the dead, any delusional action is possible.

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department is attempting to minimize the perception that Pastor Jones and his followers represent mainstream American views toward Islam. A demonstration in Kabul has already been held protesting the upcoming event (recall that "Burn a Koran Day" is itself a protest) (source). Yes, this protest included the burning of a Pastor Jones effigy as well as the American Flag (friendly reminder: this is also Constitutionally-protected activity). As General David Petraeus hinted, "Burn a Koran Day" is likely to further endanger U.S. troops occupying Afghanistan and Iraq (source). But then again, if men with guns were setting up military checkpoints in your country and killing your neighbors with Predator Drones, any excuse will do...

Free speech is a sacred concept in the project for civilization, and one that is poorly-understood in many circles of the world. The notion that "you don't have a right not to be offended" is, despite the frank parlance, a complex idea. Respecting the right to expression of those one disagrees with can be downright difficult, yet defending their freedom to express such views is paramount - even and especially around a controversial subject matter such as religion. Pastor Jones' actions may be ill-advised but I will nonetheless defend his right to burn Harry Potter books, the Quran, or the flag of his choice. So long as this is his property, it is none of our business what he does with it.

A decommissioned missile that "Ground Zero Mosque"
protesters are driving around the proposed
Islamic community center site

Which is why, for the exact same reason, I believe the Park51 Project (woefully mis-characterized as the "Ground Zero Mosque") should be defended by all liberty-loving people of the world. This Islamic community center, which includes a 9/11 memorial and is two blocks away from the World Trade Center site, is private property which has been legally obtained by the Cordoba Initiative at an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory building (source). And forget what Fox News is ginning up about "terrorist money" being used to fund this site; this is inflammatory nonsense and further none of our business because private organizations have no obligation to disclose their financial records to city governments.

That one would object to the demonstration against the Quran or the construction of the Islamic community center is the central problem. It would seem that, all too often, people are inclined to support free speech they support and rally against the expression of ideas they disagree with. Perhaps it is the visceral reaction to an opposing point of view, perhaps it is the insecurity one might feel about their own views that they would wish to prevent competition in the marketplace of ideas. Simply put: the most civilized act any American can do is respect the private property rights of the Cordoba Initiative in lower Manhattan; the most thoughtful response any Muslim can have to Pastor Terry Jones is respect his right to freedom of expression.

In response to its publication, Muslims inevitably
proved this cartoon's point by blowing things up!

So why is this much easier said than done? Two words: religious dogmatism. Islam clearly has a deep cultural problem in the West; many Muslims wish to enjoy the liberty of a pluralistic society but often cannot tolerate criticism of their own faith. The 2005 Danish cartoon controversy illustrates this problem more dramatically than any other (source). While many Islamic leaders regularly criticize Western culture (including dress, music, secular government, and the liberty of women generally), criticism of Islam itself sets off a powder keg of violence - (not so) ironically best illustrated by the cartoon in question. While the publication of this cartoon in Jyllands-Posten did harm to no one (except for violating that imaginary "right not to be offended"), offended Muslims were responsible for the death of over 100 across the Middle East and massive destruction of embassies, businesses, and other forms of "Western Imperialism." Sure, Christians were upset when Andres Serrano dunked a crucifix in urine (source)... but at least no one died.

Christ is pissed!

The fountainhead of this animosity, against Muslims and Christians alike, is rooted in the divisive nature of religious fundamentalism itself. And by that, I really mean religion itself, because "religious moderation" effectively amounts to diluting the acidic bath of dogmatism with some neutralizing secular values and reasoned discourse. These Holy Books are themselves fundamentally at odds and with irreconcilable differences to one another. Pastor Terry Jones understands this better than most; he is convinced "Islam is of the Devil" (source). Surely nothing less would compel him to risk his life in demonstrating this. Similarly, Sayyid Qutb, cited by many as the intellectual father of radical Islamic Jihad and its modern outgrowth in the form of Al Qaeda, drew his disdain for Western culture from his own faith (source).

Anyone watching this clash of ideologies unfolding from Mars would rightly conclude that mixing 1st Century beliefs with 21st Century weaponry is a recipe for the end of human life on Earth.

So what solution is there, then, when the liberal democratic values of free speech are trumped by deep religious division? Unrepentant non-believer Christopher Hitchens argues that "the taming and domestication of religious faith is one of the unceasing chores of civilization" (source). So long as the shared values of liberty are undermined by the sacred cows of religious dogmatism, he argues, such controversies will continue to escalate to violence - believed to have been sanctioned by "God" / "Allah." Hitchens writes:

"Those who wish that there would be no mosques in America have already lost the argument: Globalization, no less than the promise of American liberty, mandates that the United States will have a Muslim population of some size. The only question, then, is what kind, or rather kinds, of Islam it will follow. There's an excellent chance of a healthy pluralist outcome, but it's very unlikely that this can happen unless, as with their predecessors on these shores, Muslims are compelled to abandon certain presumptions that are exclusive to themselves. The taming and domestication of religion is one of the unceasing chores of civilization. Those who pretend that we can skip this stage in the present case are deluding themselves and asking for trouble not just in the future but in the immediate present."

It should be instructive that the most vocal and violent opposition (source) to the Islamic cultural center in Lower Manhattan are from Christians and that Christian Pastor Terry Jones is organizing "Burn a Koran Day." It should also be of little surprise that no single act prompts more violence by Muslims than a demonstration against Islam. So long as anyone is admonished to uncritically support religious faith - being such engines of division and brutality, and so long as criticism of faith (Islam, Christianity, or any other stripe of irrational dogmatism) prompts death threats and intimidation, freedom and liberty are threatened for everyone. While "militant atheism" is a popular term of derision for Hitchens and other outspoken secularists like him, the genuine militant barbarism - directed against mind and body - is that of theism.

So let us all draw Mohammed (source), let us all be De-Baptized (source), and let us all remember that we share a single, fragile planet and needn't delude ourselves with religious fantasies any longer.

End Prohibition ... of Prostitution

2010-09-06T00:10:00.002-06:00

The recent controversy over Craigslist's removal of "adult services" has raised larger questions over how, if at all, prostitution can be prevented in the United States (source). The issue at hand, of course, is how prostitution can be minimized by preventing "legitimate sites" from offering these services.

What about Google? A quick Google search of "Washington DC escort services" reveals a plethora of websites (some quite upscale) that offer commercial sex - thinly-veiled as "companionship." The essential question becomes this: how many resources are Americans willing to spend in order to prohibit the "oldest profession?" Moreover, who are we kidding when we believe that the demand for sex will ever diminish to the point where there is no longer a market for it?

A quick primer on prohibition in general: when a government prohibits a product or service, the demand for this service doesn't go away; the market is driven underground, devoid of regulation and often fraught with all the problems that one would expect to find in a black market. Violence, coercion, organized crime rings, even slavery and murder. This Craigslist incident, in addition to being about increased censorship of the Internet, is really about the absurd degree to which some Americans are willing to enforce the prohibition of commercial sexual services.

Prostitution should be legal in the United States. The number of countries decriminalizing commercial sex has been on the incline for decades (source). Some legal experts (including, yes, women) have argued for the end to the prohibition of prostitution, citing a variety of health, safety, and worker's rights improvements that a legal sex industry would bring (source). And ultimately, along with the erroneously-named "war on drugs" (which is really a "war on people"), illegal prostitution continues to grow the police state and serves only to prosecute victimless crimes. In the words of attorney Alan Dershowitz after the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal (source):

"I feel that this is a America-only story that we have to put in perspective. You know, big deal, 'married man goes to prostitute!' In Europe, this wouldn't even make the back pages of the newspaper. It's a uniquely American story. We’re a uniquely, you know, pandering society and hypocritical society, when it comes to sex."

Indeed. Until we are honest enough with ourselves to admit that women (and men) should have a right to self-ownership - which includes everything from drug use and abortion rights to prostitution and end of life termination - we will have a difficult time claiming to be the "land of the free."

The Day The Lorax Went Postal

2010-09-01T16:46:00.003-06:00

In Silver Spring, Maryland - just outside Washington, DC, a man named James Lee took three people hostage at the Discovery Channel headquarters (source). After what was no doubt a tense situation, Montgomery County police shot and killed Lee. Of course, after so many recent headlines of former employees "going postal" at their old offices, one might assume this was the cause of the incident. In hard economic times, we tend to see people at their worst. Foreign terrorism or a randomly-disturbed individual are, unfortunately, also familiar themes. Yet these were not the axes that James Lee had to grind.

James Lee's MySpace photo

Lee's wide ranging, rambling demands of Discovery Communications, released in full (source), center on the cessation of human population growth, ending the glorification of war, promoting broader appreciation of biodiversity, and dismantling the capitalist economic system.

In particular, Lee cites a passage from Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael" - a 1997 novel from a trilogy about a telepathic ape who communicates with humans about the future civilization and planet Earth. Ishmael concludes that modern humans are "Takers" who consume nature and replace it with "Mother Culture" (social norms, economic systems, religious values) that espouse continual human destruction of the environment. I read this book with great interest years ago (having read the original "Ishmael" for a undergraduate level ecology course). The author is quite conscious of human population limits on the environment, as stated in a 2007 interview (source):

"So it continues to be seen that it is completely inevitable that our population must continue to grow to 8 billion, 10 billion, 12 billion. If this happens, I'm afraid I see no hope for our species. This disastrous trend... is reversible; but only if people in general come to understand that it MUST be reversed, for the sake of our own survival."

This post is not intended to condone Lee's violent actions or even his rather naive and delusional demands. Taking hostages at gunpoint rarely results in a productive petitioning of grievances. In this case, it just left the hostage-taker dead. It is also highly unlikely that Discovery Channel, driven by demands for ratings and sensational programming, would ever take the critical, sobering position that human population growth is unsustainable and widespread measures should be taken to curb further population explosion.

Then the Lorax said, "I'M MAD AS HELL AND
I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!"

But are James Lee's beliefs about human civilization "crazy?" Recall the Dr. Seuss fable, "The Lorax" (full video here) in which a small creature emerges from a deforested landscape to "speak for the trees." Before we put James Lee's short-lived infamy out of our minds and busy ourselves with other affairs, we might do well to ask ourselves: on behalf of how many extinct species, how many decimated old world forests, and how many polluted oceans might Lee be speaking?

Before we label that which we find abhorrent to be "crazy," as was the case with the 1995 Unabomber manifesto "Industrial Civilization and its Future," (full text here) penned by Theodore Kaczynski, we should stop for a moment. Overpopulation remains a very real concern on many levels - from limited resources such as drinkable water and arable soil to dwindling supplies of cheaply-extracted petroleum (source). Not to mention, of course the Sixth Extinction, a broad and far-reaching holocaust of plants and animals caused by the actions of humans beings (source). These are not imagined problems; their threat to life on Earth (human and non) are undeniable by serious people.

At the recommendation of a friend, Lee read Daniel Quinn's books in 2006 and began an ill-conceived campaign to change Discovery's programming in 2008, resulting in his arrest (source). A psychiatric evaluation concluded Lee was mentally fit - though perhaps less than realistic about how to persuade television executives. Nonetheless, in his own delusional way, James Lee was attempting to create widespread awareness of these issues through media. Among the more salient passages, Lee writes:

"The world needs TV shows that DEVELOP solutions to the problems that humans are causing, not stupify the people into destroying the world. Not encouraging them to breed more environmentally harmful humans.
Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
The humans? The planet does not need humans."

Yes James, of course the squirrels. And while the planet does not need humans, humans do need this planet. If anything positive is to come of this frightening hostage situation today, let it be that of the Greek mythology of Cassandra (read more about this here). Sometimes, having an acute perception can drive one crazy. While Jame's Lee's actions were completely indefensible, his underlying perception of human overpopulation and environmental destruction wrought by narrow pursuits of profit warrant serious consideration.

"In the game of life and evolution there are three players at the table: human beings, nature, and machines. I am firmly on the side of nature. But nature, I suspect, is on the side of the machines." —George Dyson, "Darwin Among the Machines"

P.Z. Myers: Speaking truth to absurdity

2010-08-31T20:36:00.010-06:00

This is a fascinating presentation about the value of education as a provocative, challenging experience. If science education is to flourish, it requires an unwavering commitment to rational discourse and principle; social and religious mores have no place in this environment and P.Z. illustrates how avoiding theological offense leads to institutional paralysis and fails the teacher as well as the student.

Speaking truth to absurdity: Why science education needs vocal atheists.

PZ Myers is a biologist and
associate professor at
University of Minnesota
P.Z. Myers has been told many times that atheists are scary, and that they frighten moderate god-believers away from science ... and that it would be better to mute the expression of their views on religion in order to promote science, rather than godlessness. However, that atheism is a product of an honest appreciation of the evidence, of the logic of science, and of the folly of magical and superstitious thinking.

The reason that atheists need to speak out even more loudly is that it is the only view that is true to the science, and that serves an even greater mission than science education: the encouragement of critical thinking in all matters in the populace. Besides, religion is just plain goofy.

Part 1/4

Part 2/4

Part 3/4

Part 4/4

Why I'm starting a blog

2010-08-31T14:05:00.004-06:00

Many people have noted that I post frequently on my Facebook page about various news articles, controversies, and other material I find interesting or relevant. In some ways, I have been using Facebook solely for this reason (and, you know, to play games of Scrabble and make crass, self-important remarks on other people's posts).

To this end, it has become increasingly obvious to me that starting a blog is a more effective, publicly accessible way to share these posts. After a novel suggestion from a good friend today, I decided creating a blog is better late than never - especially if the world is coming to an end in 2012!

Readers will find that I am openly vocal with my views, yet I champion Artistotle's sentiments when he wrote, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." So in this sense, I want to make sure divergent perspectives cross my path, as well.

Reviewing my areas of interest, I post most frequently on American culture - particularly in areas of science, religion, and politics. Occasionally I will wade a bit further outside my comfort zone. Please enjoy. For the time being, we are all stuck on this Pale Blue Dot with the opportunity to learn and grow together - or at the very least leave one another free to live their own lives as they see fit. And that's where I would like to start this off: