Romney too

It’s unfair of me to point out Santorum’s idiotic views on religious freedom when Romney said the same exact thing earlier today.

“They are now using Obamacare to impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away.”

You keep on using that phrase “religious freedom.” I do not think it means what you think it means.

This new “religious freedom” schtick is because the Obama administration has dared to say that all hospitals – even Catholic ones – need to provide health insurance that covers contraception. And despite the Catholic outrage being utter bullshit, it looks like the Obama administration will cave. Oh joy.

Santorum wouldn’t roll over religious freedom, he’d drown it

If that mental image disgusts you, wait until you read this part of Santorum‘s victory speech. Yes, victory speech – he just handily won the polls in both Missouri and Minnesota EDIT: and Colorado. This is my favorite bit of lunacy (transcript courtesy of Slog):

“Americans understand that there is a great deal at stake…the president does not believe that.” Obama believes “the government can give you rights…they can give you the right to health care. Look what happens when the government gives you rights, unlike when God gives you rights. The government can take them away. Santorum says he never believed we’d have a president “who would roll over” religious freedom to impose “secular values.” He continues, “We need to be the voice for freedom.”

Again, I wish I could completely disregard this guy as a fringe wacko…but thousands and thousands of Americans are voting for him. The idea that he’s the one who would uphold religious freedom is hysterical to me.

Dear Mr. Frothy Mixture: imposing a Christian theocracy on others is the exact fucking opposite of religious freedom. The only people who lap up what you spew have no concept of religious freedom, but just like hearing the promise that their personal nonsensical beliefs have the chance to become law. These are the same people who’d flip their shit if a Muslim candidate said the identical quote.

Thousands and thousands of Americans are voting for this man.

Gah.

The “Justifications for Saying ‘Cunt'” bingo card

The comments in my previous post are getting a little mind numbing, so I thought I’d give you all something to make it more fun:

If you still don’t get why some of these squares are totally asinine, start reading the comments. I believe each has been thoroughly torn to pieces by now. I really have no interest in explaining basic concepts like “words have meaning.” I mean, is it even possible to explain that concept with words to a person who believes that? Do they consider phrases like “I don’t like you” and “I fucking hate your guts, shitface” to be equivalent and expect people to react equally unemotionally to either? Curious.

I do have to give a shout out to Penn Jillette’s wife, Emily, for helping me create half of the squares. She randomly started tweeting at me last night, apparently annoyed with my post about her husband. Amongst other gems (like her claiming to be a moral relativist because she follows Kant), was this exchange:

And then I stopped engaging with her, unable to take anymore examples of people who lack compassion and common decency. What a pair.

EDIT: Excellent idea from my friend Jesse – to make each square a link to an explanation as to why that statement is wrong. I don’t have the time to write up 25 summaries, but if people want to do it in the comments, I’ll be happy to link them up here.

EDIT 2: Matthew Smith briefly summarizes what’s wrong with every square here. Thanks, Matthew! His summaries more or less mirror what I was thinking.

Women who don’t amuse Penn Jillette are cunts

Lindy West is a freelance writer who often writes for Slog, so I’ve grown to love her writing since I’ve moved to Seattle. She has a piece at MSNBC poking fun at the apocalyptic Super Bowl ads from last night. And this is what Penn Jillette thinks of her article:

“What a remarkably stupid cunt. Why did I read this? Strained comedy that does exactly what she’s busting. Horrible. How about not watching? This is just someone trying to hate people and be superior and having to work really hard at it. She does the same fucking joke 4 times and pats herself on the back for it. I’ve never seen any of these ads, and never will, but what a fucking talentless cunt.”

Yep. According to Penn Jillette, if a woman makes a joke he doesn’t find funny, she’s a stupid talentless cunt.

It was irritating when he was promoting a garbage piece his friend wrote about how guys will be guys, and the skeptical movement should accept that instead of trying to be welcoming to women. But this crosses the line. Gender based insults like “cunt” are unacceptable. And frankly it’s a little sad that Jillette embraces the skeptical movement and we embrace him back, yet he can go on tirades like this…without even watching the ads that the article is poking fun at. What happened to becoming informed before taking a position?

I’m done with Penn Jillette. We can come up with better skeptical role models and celebrities than this.

Happy Super Bowl or something

I celebrate the Super Bowl exactly how I celebrate religious holidays like Christmas and Easter. I could care less about the “true meaning” of the celebration – I’m just happy I get to spend time with friends, eat delicious food, and be happy. Because those things are what matter, not Jesus or what team wins.

I don’t know what teams are playing, but I do know there’ll be guacamole and laughing at sexist beer commercials. Good enough for me.

The cootie conspiracy

My boyfriend had a cold last week, which of course means I have a cold this week. The perk of out-of-phase illnesses is that I could bring him burritos when he felt crappy, and now he can make me tea when I feel crappy. And that we get to have conversations like this:

Me: Well, it’s not surprising that you got me sick.
Him: You should have gotten your cootie shot.
Me: God, don’t you know cootie shots don’t do anything and are just a conspiracy by Big Pharma in order to steal all of your money?!
Him: Actually, I’ve heard they cause autism too.

Just wait until you see what silly things I say when I’m on Nyquil…which should kick in in about 30 minutes. Weeeee.

 

Creationism bill passes Indiana Senate

Newflash! 28 out of 50 Indiana state Senators are still complete morons (emphasis mine):

On January 31, 2012, the Indiana Senate voted 28-22 in favor of Senate Bill 89. As originally submitted, SB 89 provided, “The governing body of a school corporation may require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation.” On January 30, 2012, however, it was amended in the Senate to provide instead, “The governing body of a school corporation may offer instruction on various theories of the origin of life. The curriculum for the course must include theories from multiple religions, which may include, but is not limited to, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Scientology.”

The Senate spent less than twenty minutes considering the bill, with its sponsor Dennis Kruse (R-District 14) defending it. Kruse acknowledged that the bill would be constitutionally problematic but, he told the education blogger at the Indianapolis Star (January 31, 2012), “This is a different Supreme Court,” adding, “This Supreme Court could rule differently.” The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana’s legal director Ken Falk was previously quoted in a story from the Associated Press (January 26, 2012) as saying that the bill is clearly unconstitutional and invites lawsuits: moreover, he added, “when lawmakers propose legislation they clearly know will end up in the courts, it wastes time and resources.”

[…] The bill now proceeds to the Indiana House of Representatives, where its sponsors are Jeff Thompson (R-District 28) and Eric Turner (R-District 32), who is also the house speaker pro tem. Thompson, interestingly, is also a cosponsor, along with Cindy Noe (R-District 87), of House Bill 1140, which would require teachers to discuss “commonly held competing views” on topics “that cannot be verified by scientific empirical evidence.” While evolution is not mentioned in the bill, Noe cohosted a controversial dinner at the Creation Evidence Expo in Indianapolis in 2009, according to the Fort Wayne Reader (August 23, 2010). In any case, HB 1140 seems to have died in committee.

…You know, I got nothing. I dealt with this idiotic crap for the 22 years I lived in Indiana, and I’m running out of new material. Now it’s just time to get the popcorn and watch the stupidity play out.

The only reason I wish I still lived in Indiana is so I could be the one to petition for Pastafarianism.

Do not donate to Susan G. Komen for the Cure

As the daughter of a breast cancer survivor, I am pissed off about Susan G. Komen’s decision to pull its grants for breast cancer screening from Planned Parenthood.

Komen claims the move is because their newly adopted guidelines do not allow them to donate money to organizations under investigation by Congress. But let’s cut the crap: this is nothing more than a snivelling political move to appease anti-choicers:

Komen has been under pressure from anti-abortion groups to drop its funding for Planned Parenthood, which received $680,000 from the anti-cancer group in 2011. Most recently, abortion foes forced a Christian publisher to stop printing pink Komen bibles and pressured bookstores to take them off the shelves. Groups have also called on supporters to boycott Komen entirely, and decried the group as a “lie from the pit of Hell.” But Komen says the anti-abortion groups’ activism didn’t play a role in its decision, which it claims is the result of a new internal policy forbidding it from funding for any organization that’s currently under investigation in Congress. (Planned Parenthood is the target of a congressional investigation, but that probe is led by an anti-abortion lawmaker who has sought to end all federal support to the group.)

One thing the AP piece misses, however, is that pressure to end the Planned Parenthood funding may have also come from within Komen itself. Karen Handel was named senior vice president at Komen in April 2011, and is now “leading the organization’s federal and state advocacy efforts.” But before joining Komen, she was a candidate in the Republican gubernatorial primary in Georgia, and was critical of Planned Parenthood. “[S]ince I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood,” she wrote in a blog post, and pledged to eliminate all state funds for breast and cervical cancer screening to the group if she were elected governor.

Isn’t it oddly convenient that their new guidelines coincide with these events? Why, it’s almost as if they adopted those guidelines in order to appease anti-choicers, while simultaneously attempting to deflect blame onto Congress!

We can speculate on Komen’s motivations until we’re blue in the face, especially since they won’t even reply to Planned Parenthood’s requests to discuss the decision. But the motivations don’t change the result: Roughly $600,000 a year will no longer be going toward breast health education, clinical breast exams, and mammogram referrals for predominantly poor and minority women. Without these preventative measures, women’s health will suffer.

Some people will argue that this is not true because Komen will simply donate the money to other organizations. If there’s an organization that provides these services with the experience and geographical spread of Planned Parenthood, fill me in. But this means more than funding for some exams, as Amanda Marcotte points out:

The existence of breast-cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood has always been a thorn in the anti-choice side. Most of Planned Parenthood’s services are related to the choice to be sexually active—contraception, STD screening and treatment, cervical cancer screening—making it easy to write off those services as unnecessary if you follow the strict abstinence-only prescription the Christian right has for women. Breast cancer, however, can strike the lifelong virgin, the married woman who only has sex for procreation, and the dirty fornicator (i.e. the vast majority of American women) alike. Because of this, anti-choicers have tried to create a rift between women’s health advocates who focus on breast cancer and those who focus on reproductive health concerns below the waist. Today, they had a victory with Komen’s act of cowardice.

[…]In the end, the grant money is less important than the symbolism of Komen buying into the conservative myth of good-girl health care vs. bad-girl health care. In reality, women’s health care can only work if it’s comprehensive health care.

Even without this latest development, there were enough issues about Komen to give me pause:

Their removal of support from Planned Parenthood is the straw that broke the camel’s back. I will now be looking for other breast cancer foundations to support, and I’ve made a donation to Planned Parenthood’s emergency funding drive. I suggest you do the same, and inform your friends and family about this situation.

Scientific publication title of the day

“Desperately Seeking Stable 50-Year-Old Landscapes with Patches and Long, Wide Corridors” in PLoS Biology.

I’m not sure if the authors purposefully came up with a title reminiscent of a personal ad, or if it’s just my overactive imagination. Either way, it makes me giggle. I mean, “long, wide corridors”? What a size queen.

For anyone wondering what the paper is actually about, the authors are looking for particular types of environments in order to investigate if corridors effectively conserve biodiversity. Human urbanization (roads, housing developments, Walmarts) serves as barriers that plants and animals have a hard time crossing. This fragments large populations into a lot of smaller ones that can’t interbreed as much. Small populations are more susceptible to events that reduce genetic diversity, like inbreeding and genetic drift. Decreasing genetic diversity is generally considered Bad, because…well, I’m lazy and Wikipedia does a good job at explaining:

“Genetic diversity serves as a way for populations to adapt to changing environments. With more variation, it is more likely that some individuals in a population will possess variations of alleles that are suited for the environment. Those individuals are more likely to survive to produce offspring bearing that allele. The population will continue for more generations because of the success of these individuals.”

Corridors are often used to attempt to make up for this fragmentation, and the authors want to see if the corridors are actually successful in promoting gene flow between populations. Thus their personal ad that made me giggle.

Deep thought meets poop joke

You know what mythical creatures seems like they would be awesome if they actually existed, but would actually be terrible? Pegasi*. I mean, think how terrible it is when a bird shits on you or right on the windshield of your car. Think of what a terrible mess geese make when they come through shitting on everything. Now extrapolate that to a bunch of fucking horses flying overhead. We wouldn’t be like “Oh, look at what soaring majestic beauty.” We’d be like “Oh fuck nooooooooo” and running for shelter.

That is all.

*Yes, the plural of Pegasus is Pegasi because “Pegasus” is Latin. The Greek version is “Pegasos.” I learned this solely because I wanted my discussion of Pegasus crap attacks to be grammatically correct. Even poop jokes can accidentally teach you something.