Almost...

According to Wikipedia, a year ago today, Stanislav Petrov was awarded the World Citizen Award for averting World War III in 1983. His Soviet military reward: a reprimand and demotion.

Santorum

"Now we are forced to do something that societies often do when people can't control their desires. We have to pass laws to stop their desires." [NYT - use bugmenot for a login]

- A new nugget from our favorite fascist in neocon's clothing, Rick Santorum. [warning: coarse]

Hat

I commend this hat.

The Brahms Effect?

I know I think better when I listen to Mozart - specifically, the Perahia recordings of the piano concertos and sonatas. Other composers can lead to other outcomes.

Brilliant.

Dominionism & the GOP

I can't support this party any more. After the Arizona thing and everything I've read about the rise of Dominion Theology [yes, it's RollingStone, no I don't normally read it, yes they did leave out the father of the movement, RJ Rushdoony - but it is RollingStone so you can only expect so much] (more info here) in the Republican party, it's painfully obvious that it's not the party it was, or the party it's supposed to be. Granted, I haven't called myself a Republican in quite a while, but I still harbored hope that it really was the party of individual empowerment first and government empowerment only when absolutely essential. I hoped that it would soon return to its roots of limited government and personal liberty. I hoped that it would recognize its fiscal responsibilities by the next election cycle. I hoped that the extremist theocrats were only a small group of morally corrupt fanatics at the edge of the party. I really wanted to believe that it was still a secular party, just friendly to and tolerant of Christianity.

Unfortunately heretics like Ted Haggard and Pat Robertson - the driving personalities behind individually oppressive charismatic Christianity - have commandeered the party. Most of the the Republicans in both legislative houses now score near-perfect ratings from the Dominionist Christian Coalition and its ilk, and this is no accident, since the congress we have now was funded and propelled largely by evangelical activists. Consequently, this increasingly activist Christian theology has steadily eroded popular support for church-state separation. We've seen bills introduced like the wildly-unconstitutional Constitution Restoration Act, which insulates and ensures the primacy of the Bible and its devotees over the Constitution. This barbaric Christian fanaticism needs to stop - it's sickening and dangerous. I hate you people so much.

I've come to see this filibuster episode for what it is too. These extremist judicial candidates do not belong on the bench. From truthout.org:

There's Priscilla Owen, the token white woman and Texas judge whose eagerness to substitute her own values for the rule of law was too much for even Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who rebuked her for it when both served on the same court.

[...]

There's Brett Kavanaugh, who has never tried a case, but rose from Ken Starr's impeachment crusade to become a White House operative.

[...]

There's William G. Meyers III, who also lacks trial experience but who has put in plenty of time rabidly fighting against environmental laws and in favor of mining interests.

The filibuster clash is over turning a blind eye to these woefully unqualified and dangerously ideological candidates, positioning them for nothing more than to further a brutal religious agenda hell-bent on theocracy.

Almost the complete Republican congressional leadership consists of born-again Dominionists. I don't know any such statistics about the cabinet yet, but I have a great deal of respect for Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, etc. and I tend to agree with them on foreign policy issues (Iraq, terrorism) while being outraged by Bush's domestic policies (illegal immigration, stem cell research). If, however, I find the same Dominionist beliefs among the cabinet, I will be confirmed third-party for the foreseeable future.

For the moment, the scope of my alarm is limited to Congress. I can't be part of this new, horrifying direction they're taking the GOP in, but being an individual who believes in his own potential, and not simply a representative of a demographic, I will never, ever have anything to do with the Democratic party. Thanks to the consolidation and reanimation of their "fringe, kook bases," the choice between these two has become Theocracy or Socialism. Kathy Martin or Noam Chomsky.

I choose freedom.

Proof Positive

... that fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity are on the same side. (see this weblog's credo)

In order to make up its mind over what sort of biological concepts should be taught to Kansas schoolchildren, the state's school board is using taxpayer money to fly in a nonscientist associated with a group that terrorized Turkish professors who dared question that the proliferation of life on Earth was a miracle of Allah.

When asked to appear in Kansas to counter the creationists (let's not mince words here, ID is creationism costumed in pseudo-science), the following is one example of how actual scientists responded:

"As I am sure you are aware, the state of Kansas has made itself the laughingstock of the scientific world over this issue," wrote Oxford University professor and well-known author Richard Dawkins to the state board after he got his invitation. "The very idea of 'representatives from both views' presupposes that there are two views to represent.... For real scientists to share a platform with the biological equivalent of flat-earthers would be to give them the credibility, respectability, and above all publicity that they crave. I am sorry, but count me out."

I understand why reputable scientists are boycotting this trial, but given what happened in Turkey (creationism is now taught in public high school biology books there), and the players involved, can they really afford to sit this one out?

Though it's unsavory, we need to take these people head on, not just ignore them. Religion has this nasty habit of occupying power vacuums (e.g. the dark ages and other transitional periods between empires) such that when there is no strong leadership pointing to the truth, religion emerges and attracts throngs to itself, as it requires no objective critical thought, only blind belief and intransigence. It's an alarmingly simple and effective trap, and all too alluring for a huge number of (uneducated) people. People like Kathy Martin.

That's why we have to engage creationists or any of these other ignorant groups of people, regardless of their tactics or backward beliefs - because if we don't they will win people over the same way they have in power vacuums of the past: by default. They thrive on silence. Let's not afford them another default.

Scary.

What Fun

This is one of the most enjoyable polemics I've read in a long time. And, its target is one of the most unsavory icons of the liberal establishment. (One of...)

I liked it so much I gave it its own post. So you should read it now.

It Starts...

Kansas is the new Florida.

How quickly and deeply will the coming rift in the Republican party form? If Bruce Fein and this Kansas thing are any indicators: soon, and deeply. Let the soapboxing begin!

One of my music friends inadvertently just asked me what the "anacrusis of Federalism" would be... tee hee.

Evolution Is Still Right and There's Nothing You Can Do About It

There are these frequent moments when I consider just chucking the music career out the window, and dedicating my efforts to reversing the tide of charismatic religious zealotry in this country. The latest dose of idiocy (that I'm aware of) comes to us courtesy of the Kansas State Board of Education. You're gonna love this:

Perhaps the most significant shift would be in the very definition of science - instead of "seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us," the new standards would describe it as a "continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."

In a nutshell: no longer limiting science to natural explanation. So, Aristotle looking up at the night sky and posing the hypothesis that "stars" are actually cracks in the great glass globe that surrounds the planet: That's science.

Or the old lady at the back of the room at a Bertrand Russell lecture: She stood up at the end and said, "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." Russell asked, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever young man," she replied. "But it's turtles all the way down!" That's also science. Good, old fashioned, homegrown science.

Another scientifically valid theory of the universe,
according to the Kansas State School Board.

The article regales us with further accounts of the mediocre sophistry these people pass off as reason:

"You can infer design just by examining something, without knowing anything about where it came from," Dr. Harris said [in defending Intelligent Design], offering as an example "The Gods Must be Crazy," a film in which Africans marvel at a Coke bottle that turns up in the desert. "I don't know who did it, I don't know how it was done, I don't know why it was done, I don't have to know any of that to know that it was designed."

Whatever. I can do that too. Douglas Adams told a charming tale [RealMedia] about a puddle who woke one day after a thunderstorm and said "This hole that I live in fits me just perfectly. It obviously was made especially for me." You think that just because something exists, or it's complex or intricate that someone had to be sitting there designing it and making it. And you'll stick with that until science throws overwhelming evidence to the contrary at you, and then you may finally abdicate. To employ a freshly-minted term, yours is a "God of the gaps" - and frankly is a small god designed especially for a very small person.

I'll reconcile science and religion for Dr. Harris right now. It's rather simple, and I've understood it explicitly at least since high school, and implicitly probably as long as I've been conscious. Ready? Here it is:

• "Science" answers a specific set of questions: What, When, Where & How.
• "Religion" also answers a specific set of questions: Who & Why.
• Neither should venture in to the other's territory, as they will always get the wrong answers to questions that they have no business addressing. Rf: Creationism.

Whoa, that was difficult! As you can see, the problem with Dr. Idiot's "The Gods Must Be Crazy" argument is that he specifically sets aside the questions that only religion can answer:

"I don't know who did it, I don't know how it was done, I don't know why it was done..."

and then presumes to answer a question in the realm of science through ideology:

"... I don't have to know any of that to know that it was designed."

That's a big leap. You can know that the thing is there, but to know that it "was designed?" He's trying to answer the "What" question (and in truth the "How" question as well, regardless of what he mistakenly asserted in the previous phrase) by inquiring into the origins of the thing using religious ideology which is ill-suited to questions in the scientific sphere. The most we can hope for out of such disoriented reasoning is an uninformed miscarraige of religion and science that satisfies neither inquiry.

The best story I know of confusing science and religion is of our old friend Pat Robertson who "prayed away" Hurricane Gloria in 1985, and even claimed to have directed it at Fire Island himself. A stunning display of theological meteorology if there ever was one.

Religion needs to learn its place, now more than ever. Fundamentalist Christianity is no more worthy of respect or patronage than fundamentalist Islam. They're both dangerous, and even "evolved" Creationism like Intelligent Design impedes the progress of Evolution. Stuff evolves, that's pretty apparent. Stop making excuses or go away.

KookyChow

It's been almost three weeks since my last post, as I've been busy writing, recording and scoping out Los Angeles. But I came across one website that is just too good to pass up: KookyChow.com

It's run by a former BigIdea artist who had a collection of "Regrettable Edibles" displayed in his office. A particular favorite from the site: