Religious cruelty to animals

There is no question that factory farming treats animals inhumanely. Yet Johann Hari points out that in Britain at least, there is one redeeming feature in that system in that the animals are required to be stunned before they are slaughtered, thus making them numb and presumably sparing them considerable pain as they are killed.

Yet there is an exemption for even this minimal requirement, granted for (surprise!) religion:

You are allowed to skip all this and slash the throats of un-numbed, screaming animals if you say God told you to. If you are Muslim, you call it “halal”, and if you are Jewish you call it “kosher”.

Atheists who criticise religion are constantly being told we have missed the point and religion is really about compassion and kindness. It is only a handful of extremists and fundamentalists who “misunderstand” faith and use it for cruel ends, we are told with a wagging finger. But here’s an example where most members of a religion choose to do something pointlessly cruel, and even the moderates demand “respect” for their “views”. Their faith makes them prioritise pleasing an invisible supernatural being over the screaming of actual living creatures. Doesn’t this suggest that faith itself – the choice to believe something in the total absence of evidence – is a danger that can lead you up needlessly nasty paths?

As has been said by many people many times, it takes religion to make otherwise good and reasonable people do bad things.

And now, roving porno scanners

It turns out that machines similar to the TSA’s porno scanners are being used in mobile vans by private companies. So these private companies are taking these images of people on the streets and in their vehicles without the victims being aware of them. These devices can also apparently penetrate walls so it may now be possible for total strangers to peer into people’s homes.

Porno scanner rap video

Via Juan Cole, I came across this rap video inspired by John Tyner’s memorable phrase “Don’t touch my junk!”

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Now everyone is a terrorist

Governments use the threats of defending against outside forces (such as terrorists) to pass laws and regulations that are oppressive and the public willingly goes along with them thinking that this will never affect them. But the real goal of governments is to have those laws available to use against its own citizens if they need to. A perfect example of this is the law permitting the government to detain indefinitely without trial any person they merely suspect, without evidence, to be a terrorist. This is an extraordinary power to give the government but people did so because they thought it would only be used against ‘the other’, such as foreigners.

But in the wake of the protests against the TSA’s porno scanners and groping methods, the TSA now says that anyone refusing to submit to either of these two intrusive procedures can be detained indefinitely and questioned until the government decides to release them.

The TSA procedures are not governed by law but are internal polices of the Department of Homeland Security, which has become like the infamous ‘secret police’ in authoritarian countries, given almost unlimited powers to harass its own citizens in the name of national security.

The ACLU has provided information on your rights and what you can do under the law. But it is limited. Only widespread protests and outrage can roll back the national security state.

Screening pilots

Of all the absurd things associated with the TSA’s porno scans and groping security measures, the most absurd is that pilots are subjected to the same things. If they wanted to kill everyone on board, why would they even need a bomb or other weapon to hijack a plane? After all, the fact that are given control of the plane, are armed, and are inside the locked cockpit where no one can get at them suggests that they can do whatever damage they want without having to bring anything in from outside.

As a result of the recent outcry, it appears that even the TSA has realized that this is silly and pilots will no longer be subjected to such intrusive screening.

Euphemisms for torture

The US establishment media such as the New York Times becomes very coy about using the word torture to describe acts by its own government (such as waterboarding) that it did not hesitate to use when those same acts were used by other governments, preferring convoluted locutions such as ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’.

Simon Owens at TNW Media points to an enterprising person who has decided to help the NYT out of the difficulty of finding new euphemisms by creating a ‘New York Times Torture Euphemism Generator‘.

Now anyone can be as solicitous to the sensitivities of the US government as the New York Times!

Backhanded recommendations

This website highlights ambiguous sentences from letters of recommendation.

  • You will be lucky to get this person to work for you
  • I cannot recommend this person too highly
  • I recommend this candidate with no qualifications
  • Waste no time hiring this person
  • He was fired with enthusiasm
  • Nobody is better than this man
  • I found myself frequently raving about her work
  • I would place his research on the cutting edge
  • I would place this student in a class by herself
  • He has made immeasurable contributions to our firm

On free will-9: Attempts to salvage free will

(For previous posts in this series, see here.)

People who are determined to keep the Ghost in the Machine alive still have a few options. Ironically, although it was Libet’s early experiments that cast doubt on the idea that we have free will, he himself was disturbed by that implication and has sought to find ways to salvage it. In his many publications, he repeats his belief that his experiments did not rule out free will and suggests ways in which it could still operate.
[Read more…]

How much indignity are people willing to suffer for supposed security?

John Tyner, the person who opposed having the TSA either porno scan him or grope him has been fielding questions from people who say things like “So if next time a terrorist successfully hides “devices” to kill Americans on a plane, because you seem to think TSA or airport security is over-excessive…What will you say?”

The questioner usually thinks this is a killer argument and that anyone who speaks up for freedom from this kind of government abuse will backpedal when confronted with the question: what if we do as you say and a terrorist exploits this very feature to kill people?

My answer would be: That’s tough. People die tragic deaths all the time. We have to learn to live with this risk just the way we live with the many and much greater risks that we face every day. We cannot avoid all risks to people. It is never a question of zero risk versus maximum risk. Risk lies on a continuum and we have to decide on the level of risk that is acceptable, and not focus on the kind of risk. Why is it worse to die in an airplane crash caused by a terrorist act than an airplane crash caused by pilot fatigue or engine failure? Why is it worse to be killed by a bomb than it is to die in a car crash or be hit by lightning or be killed by a deranged killer on a murder spree?

If we decide, against all reason, that airplane terrorists have to be foiled whatever the cost, then we are doomed because we are at the mercy of whatever crazy scheme they come up with next. For example, the TSA’s porno scanners cannot detect devices that are stored inside body cavities. Suppose yet another stupid suicide terrorist is discovered with a bomb secreted inside his rectum. Does that mean that we should submit to body cavity searches? Why not?

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) speaks out against the absurdity and introduces legislation that would make the TSA subject to the same laws as everybody else.

Why the terrorists are winning

The goal of terrorists is not to kill people. Their goal is to terrorize people and killing people is just one means to that end. If they can terrorize without even killing, so much the better. And here they seem to have succeeded. By deploying incompetent people to attempt half-baked plans to blow up planes (the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, etc.), they have managed to get this country to spend vast amounts of money to harass perfectly ordinary law-abiding people.

Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg thinks that all these harassing security precautions are pure theater to give the public an impression that the government is doing something and being careful when the methods are totally ineffective. He gives a shocking account of all the deliberately suspicious acts he has committed and all the forbidden things he has managed to get through airport security (many of which were deliberately chosen to arouse suspicion) without setting off alarm bells. He quotes security analyst Bruce Schneier as saying that any half-way intelligent terrorist plot can foil these security devices. “The whole system is designed to catch stupid terrorists…. Counterterrorism in the airport is a show designed to make people feel better. Only two things have made flying safer: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.”