The libertarian mindset on proud display

I hope you aren’t working on dinner right now, because watching John Stossel and Steve Doocy flaunt their inability to empathize with anyone but their own selfish interests will cause you to lose it.

Stossel is outraged that he has to pay the same insurance premiums as a woman — they go to the doctor more! It’s not as if regular checkups might actually reduce health care costs, you know — he’s saving money by skipping on the maintenance and waiting for the catastrophic disaster.

As for smug little twit Doocy: “I’m in my 60s. Why should I pay for your maternity care?”

Hey, I’m in my 50s, why should I subsidize your greater health care needs, old man? My kids are in their 20s, they shouldn’t have to pay for any insurance, ’cause they’re healthy and young!

Maybe because someday I, and they, will be in our 60s, too. And maybe somebody Doocy loves will need maternity care (oh, wait, no, that can’t be can it? These are Fox News goons, they can’t possibly love a woman, ever.)

Stossel, by the way, is 66. Why the hell is he still employed, still insured, still supported by anyone? Isn’t it way past time for society to stop subsidizing the old geezer, shuffling him off to pasture so young people can move up?

Or is it possible that a responsible society values all of its members and gives them all lifelong equal citizenship?

Fox News, Gretchen Carlson, Bill Donohue

There’s nothing in that title to entice you, is there? It was a panel on religion (ugh), and at least Dave Silverman was there to represent the rational side. And right out of the gate, Bill Donohue insults Silverman’s intelligence.

The whole thing was weighted against him, and it was clearly a setup, but I have to give Silverman props for staying cool and bringing the fight right into the heart of hostile territory.

Do you hate ads? Do you have money? Do you have a paypal account?

At last, we have a solution for people who meet those criteria: Sign up for a No Ad Subscription. $3/month, $30/year. All you have to do is log in as you and the annoying awful ads magically disappear.

If you have no money, we promise to keep the free ad-laden version available for you.

If you have problems making it work, don’t complain to me, I can do nothing, nothing I tell you — but Jason Thibeault has a complaint thread. Go there.


Also, let’s be 100% clear on something: all this service does is block ads. If you’ve been banned, don’t expect to plunk down $3 and get un-banned — you’ll still be able to read an ad-free site, but nothing in the service guarantees you a right to comment.

Scariest story ever

The Discovery Institute is sponsoring an Alaskan cruise with the theme, “Science & Faith: Friends or Foes?”. They have two speakers, Stephen Meyer, long-winded pompous philosopher with a twisted version of science that supports his religious views, and John Lennox, theological bullfrog without a clue. So who’s speaking for the side of science? No one. They have no one qualified to do so at the DI.

But imagine being trapped on a boat with those two pretentious airheads for a week. <shudder>

Halloween is for scary stories

Salon has a small collection of tiny horror stories for Halloween. The only rule is that they can only be two sentences long: so you can go for Hemingwayesque brevity or a Joycean ramble, but you’re only allotted two periods.

So I wrote one. They’re easy!

Christmastime

We had lost electricity, gas, and supplies months ago, so no sound disturbed the gentle hiss as the flakes fell, no movement marred the scene, and our houses in this sleepy little town all looked like picturesque Kinkade cottages pillowed with untrammeled snow, except that there was no curl of smoke from our chimneys, nor any ruddy glow behind the windows. Behind those dark windows rimed with ice, we all stared admiringly with hollow eyes in gaunt faces at our neighbors’ lovely homes, and with cold-numbed fingers we loaded shotguns and sharpened axes, and we thought simple, homely thoughts of wood, and fire, and warmth, and…barbecue.

Now, it’s your turn. Leave a two-sentence horror story in the comments. I’ve got a morning of teaching ahead of me, but when I get some time around noon, I’ll promote the best of them up top.


Ooh, I thought of another one!

Evanescence

Scientists had mastered immortality, but there was no way around the limitations of the human mind. By the end of the century, the world was ruled by ancient old men who had shed their oldest memories, and lacked even the faintest recollection of their mothers, their childhoods, their first kiss…


So many stories…here’s a short subjective sampling from the comments.

From texasskeptic:

Alicia was already bored, “you don’t have an PlayStation or anything?” she asked.
“I know a game we can play,” Danny said, running to his dad’s nightstand, “You can be the robber!”

From Crip Dyke:

His unfamiliar hands put down knife and fork with a bright clink that pierced me painfully even though my migraine had largely subsided, and then my date etched in my memory his admission, “Yes I’m that John Loftus, but you shouldn’t let what you’ve read concern you: I’ve learned so much lately. Have you heard of the Men’s Human Rights Movement?”

From Jonathan, der Ewige Noobe:

We stared up at it, watching the teeth dig in, the dark mass spread, rootlike, over its meal, and for a moment we imagined that we might be able to stop it.

Then someone (I can’t remember who) realized that, given the speed of light, this had happened eight and a half minutes ago.

From Rey Fox:

There are no jobs. Next, climate change.

From UnknownEric the Apostate:

Jack the MRAtheist was sitting in his hotel room, writing short misogynist screeds on Twitter, when there was a knock at the door. A voice on the other side said, “Hi, It’s Rebecca Watson.”

From dianne:

I knew it was over before I even got to the hospital: the pain was terrible and the bleeding worse, my fever was 103 but the contractions weren’t coming. The nurse came into the room beaming and said, “Great news: there’s still a heartbeat and we will treat you both with love!”

From ledasmom:

I rolled over in my husband’s arms to kiss him. I put my hand up to cradle his head and against my fingers felt the back of his face.

From miserlyoldman:

As I sit finishing reading some alarmist tripe about how a fungus like Ophiocordyceps unilateralis was in a position to turn zoonotic, driving people into open fields for spore release and some other miserable dreck that would never have the standing to be published any place respectable, I mourned the rise of clickbait journalism. I need to get away from this electronic glow for a bit, enjoy the beautiful crisp autumn air, feel a little nip in the wind in a place where I can cloudgaze for a while; it’s been forever since I’ve visited the park…

From stillacrazycanuck:

Looking down on her decaying corpse, the rotting flesh already falling from her bones, maggots crawling within her mouth and her eyes bulging from their sockets, I gave thanks that at least her pain was no more. Then she blinked.

From strangerinastrangeland:

The wiggeling mass of tentacles handed over the large bundle of dollar bills to the little boy and they shook hands – or better hand and slimy appendix of the netherworld – on their deal before it disappeared again into the darkness under the boy’s bed.

“Daddy, Daddy, there is a monster under my bed, you have to come and look and help me”, cried the boy, with a little smile on his face while counting his bounty.

Somebody care to decipher some 990 forms?

Here are the very latest tax forms from Answers in Genesis — they’re from 2011, so they’re a bit behind. The 990 form from AiG has a bottom line loss of about $400,000 for that year; the 990 for Crosswater, the front company for the Ark Encounter project, has a net gain of about $400,000. That’s about all I can decipher from them, so maybe some more experienced money managers can puzzle it out more thoroughly than I can.

I do see that Ken Ham gets a yearly salary that’s way over twice what I get. Ignorance pays!