We have our own barbarian subculture

An Arizona Democrat, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, has been shot and possibly killed by an assassin armed with an automatic weapon. Her offices had earlier been targeted for vandalism for her support of health care reform.

Isn’t it amazing that health care reform has become such a polarizing issue, and that the people who are raging the loudest are those who would benefit the most?

I’ll take a wild guess here. The scumbag who committed this crime has been caught; I’ll bet he’ll turn out to be a Teabagger who listens to a lot of AM talk radio.

Holy crap. This was Sarah Palin’s idea of a clever campaign earlier this year: she had select Democrats, including Gabrielle Giffords, targeted with a gunsight symbol.

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What a vile creature. Perhaps she ought to consider not inciting the deranged assholes who follow her.

And that’s not all.

(via Firedoglake)

It wasn’t just shoddy, it was fraud

The infamous Andrew Wakefield study that claimed to find a link between autism and vaccinations is still being scrutinized, and the latest investigation has uncovered evidence of faked data.

A new examination found, by comparing the reported diagnoses in the paper to hospital records, that Wakefield and colleagues altered facts about patients in their study.

The analysis, by British journalist Brian Deer, found that despite the claim in Wakefield’s paper that the 12 children studied were normal until they had the MMR shot, five had previously documented developmental problems. Deer also found that all the cases were somehow misrepresented when he compared data from medical records and the children’s parents.

Children died because of the hysteria fomented by the contemptible Wakefield. How does that guy live with himself?

Here’s how: he’s in denial. Watch Anderson Cooper call an apoplectic Wakefield a liar.

What’s the difference between the Vatican and the Mafia?

At least the Mafia doesn’t tolerate baby-rapers in its ranks.

Otherwise, though, they’re both shady organizations with very tightly closed ranks and a sense of privilege. It seems the Vatican is also suspected of criminal enterprises — it has its very own private, secretive bank that is accused of money laundering, and recently had about $30 million in assets seized.

I don’t think the Vatican has any ties to grisly gangland murders, though…oh, wait.

Calvi headed the Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in 1982 after the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans made to dummy companies in Latin America. The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans.

Calvi was found a short time later hanging from scaffolding on Blackfriars Bridge, his pockets loaded with 11 pounds of bricks and $11,700 in various currencies. After an initial ruling of suicide, murder charges were filed against five people, including a major Mafia figure, but all were acquitted after trial.

While denying wrongdoing, the Vatican Bank paid $250 million to Ambrosiano’s creditors.

RDF v. Timonen

I’m seeing the news popping up everywhere now that the Richard Dawkins Foundation is suing Josh Timonen for fraud and embezzlement. The central fact of the story is that Timonen has been accused of diverting 92% of the revenues from the RDF store to his own personal use.

There’s not much that can be said. Richard Dawkins and the RDF are going to be rightly silent on the case. Josh Timonen has unwisely commented, while failing to refute the major facts of the accusation. I’m not going to say much myself, because while I liked Josh personally, the case against him looks awfully damning. But it will have to work its way through the courts before anyone involved can say more.

You can read the full formal complaint for more details. At this point I’m just hoping it can be resolved quickly and efficiently so that the work of the RDF can proceed without distraction.

The good news is that the RDF has an excellent source of revenue on its hands; the facts in the court document suggest that a well-managed continuation of their services will be a great resource for the foundation. And that’s the best spin I can put on an ugly situation all around, and I won’t be writing more about it until the case is closed. May that happen soon and to the advantage of the cause of science and reason.

I know that there’s been a lot of anger and schadenfreude and bitterness about this situation going on in the comments. Feel free to vent, but just be clear: the resolution of this issue is entirely in the hands of the courts right now, and you aren’t going to get any more information out of the principals in the case until it’s over. And I’m feeling kind of cranky myself because I know all of these people and also have a lot of personal interest vested in the success of the RDF.

There is further clarification from the lawyer for the RDF available.

Should an online poll determine what is cruel and unusual?

The Berkeley County jail in South Carolina has a terrifying policy:

Our inmates are only allowed to receive soft back bibles in the mail directly from the publisher. They are not allowed to have magazines, newspapers, or any other type of books.

First thought: I’d die if I were arrested in Berkeley County.

Second thought: it says something about the county that they’ve had this policy for years, and are only now moving on one complaint made in 2008. The comments section on the article is enlightening, too — apparently, prisoners ought to be digging ditches, not reading, and if we let them read magazines, next thing you know they’ll be demanding vacations in Vegas.

But here’s a snapshot of the South Carolina citizenry’s views on this issue. The numbers might change soon, though, as a more enlightened world intrudes.

Should prisoners be able to read whatever they want?

Yes 22%
No 66%
It depends on the crime. 11%

Ah, but it’s only a few bad apples

That’s the usual excuse we here from defenders of Catholicism — that the accusations of pedophilia and sexual abuse are only the work of a tiny minority of rotten people. I can accept that it’s a small minority that are the actual perpetrators, but the culture of the church protects its own…and the privileged, special, precious people aren’t the congregation, it’s the priesthood.

Belgium has plumbed the depths of its own local apple barrel, and made a horrifying discovery.

“We can say that no congregation escapes sexual abuse of minors by one or several of its members,” the commission concluded.

The 200-page report, published on Friday, contains testimonies from some 124 anonymous victims, revealing that abuse for most began at the age of 12.

It noted a “high number of suicides” with 13 deaths and six attempts attributed to “sexual abuse by a cleric”.

Every congregation has a horror story about an abusive priest. That says something. This isn’t about a rare event — it’s about a common risk associated with growing up Catholic in Belgium.

Psychic destruction in Belize

Two children are missing in Belize, and no one knows what happened to them. So a helpful ‘psychic’ declared that they had been fed to the crocodiles in a nearby sanctuary. The results were predictable.

Reports are that the mob shot and killed some of the 17 crocs held in captivity at the sanctuary. Also destroyed were the Rose’s two story home that included a laboratory and nursery for baby crocs. One baby American Crocodile was to be flown to Chicago to the Wildlife Discovery Center in Lake Forest, Ill. USA for the first ever animal exchange program between Belize and the USA. Over $2,500 in vet supplies that were recently donated for a new humane society that Cherie, along with other locals were working on in Punta Gorda were also lost. “This one wrongful incident has effected and hurt many innocent people and animals,” added Cherie.

The sanctuary looks like it was an amazing setup: all power was provided by solar and wind, they offered educational programs, they were training students, and they were also supporting local eco-tourism. And of course their primary mission was protecting endangered reptiles.

Now it’s all destroyed by the lies of one ignorant fraud, whipping up a mob into a ridiculous frenzy. Even now the people who ran the sanctuary can’t come back — they’ve been threatened with death.

Ignorance isn’t just a passive failure. Ignorance topples and destroys the great things people build up.

The organizers are asking for donations — they’re hoping to rebuild.

International wiring account number for donations
Belize Bank # 630-1-1-10130
Account# Vince & Cherie Rose Fire Victim Account

Free Gregory Koger

Gregory Koger is an ex-con and a revolutionary communist…and none of that should matter in the slightest. He’s also a person who was beat up, handcuffed, maced, arrested, and now faces the prospect of a three year jail sentence for the crime of holding up his iPhone to take pictures of police harrassment. Koger is the young man who was documenting Sunsara Taylor’s protest of the behavior of the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago (which, by the way, ought to change their name to drop the first word), and who, oddly, was manhandled and arrested for taking videos of the event, while Taylor herself, who was doing all the talking, got away relatively unhassled.

Koger has now been convicted of trespassing, and will be sentenced on Wednesday. The whole thing has been Kafkaesque — it’s the most hysterical, overblown response to a guy taking a picture of a public event that I’ve ever heard of, and it’s a slap against everyone’s personal freedoms.

Here is the statement from Sunsara Taylor:

There is no justice in the outrageous conviction of Gregory Koger on charges of trespass, resisting arrest, and battery for the “crime” of videotaping a statement I gave at the “Ethical” Humanist Society of Chicago after they dis-invited me from a long scheduled presentation I was to give on November 1st, 2009. Gregory Koger is not only innocent of all charges he has now been convicted of, he is a righteous and beautiful human being who all people seeking to live an ethical life should support as well as learn deeply from.

How is it that Gregory Koger came to be my videographer last November at the “Ethical” Humanist Society of Chicago?

Gregory’s struggle to understand the source of his own long and bitter experiences of injustice and dehumanization as a young man led him to conclusions that were about much more than himself.

How many young men these days put their bodies on the line to defend the doctors who provide the right to abortion women need to even have a chance at a decent and equal life?

Gregory traveled to Kansas to defend Dr. Leroy Carhart when Carhart was declared “Enemy #1” by the same forces who had long-persecuted the recently murdered Dr. George Tiller.

How many Americans these days take responsibility for stopping the torture committed by the U.S. government in our names, not only under Bush, but also under Obama? How many who claim to oppose the wars and occupations by the U.S. government of Iraq and Afghanistan do more than complain under their breath and then change the channel or turn the page?

Gregory donned the orange jumpsuit of Guantanamo detainees in public protests and he marched against these wars, determined to make his opposition felt by people everywhere, including our sisters and brothers across the globe.

How many white people even notice, let alone stand up against, the systematic police terror and brutality that is a fact of life for youth, especially Black and Latino youth, in the inner cities everywhere?

Gregory went to the Southside of Chicago to speak out against a spate of police shootings of young Black men. He has consistently exposed the disproportionate incarceration and violence experienced by Black people in the criminal justice system.

It is through his activity in these realms, as well as his work with the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund to get revolutionary literature into the U.S. prison system that now holds more than 2.3 million human beings, that I came to know Gregory. It was his interest in morality and ethics, in philosophy and revolution, as well as his passion for film that led him to volunteer for me the weekend I was scheduled to give a talk titled, “Morality Without Gods,” at the “Ethical” Humanist Society of Chicago.

The themes of my talk, which drew on the theoretical framework developed by Bob Avakian in his book, AWAY WITH ALL GODS! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, examined the basis for a morality that is rooted neither in the brutality and ignorance of Biblical times nor the narrow-minded individualism and relativism of modern U.S. capitalism. I posed the need for a morality that both reflects and serves the struggle to bring into being a world free of all forms of exploitation and oppression, a communist world, a world where everyone contributes whatever they can to society and gets back what they need to live a life worthy of human beings.

The irony is bitter; when it comes to “morality without gods,” it is difficult to think of a starker living contrast than that between Gregory Koger and the conduct of the “Ethical” Humanist Society of Chicago.

I recount all this not only to demonstrate how deeply immoral it is that the “Ethical” Humanist Society of Chicago, spearheaded by their president Matt Cole, has viciously and vengefully persecuted Gregory Koger. I recount this to make clear that it is not only Gregory who will suffer due to this outrageous and unjust verdict, but that all those who are victims of the many injustices and oppression that Gregory fought against will also suffer.

It is incumbent upon all who care about the truth, who care about justice and the human spirit, who care about freedom and rights of the most oppressed and exploited in this country and worldwide, to not only join in insisting that Gregory be immediately released on bail and his conviction overturned, but to learn from Gregory’s example and step up their own involvement in the struggle for human emancipation.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

  • Immediately send statements of support for Gregory to the defense committee AdHoc4Reason@gmail.com

  • Donate money for the appeal. Go to the defense committee website for more information

  • Show your support at the sentencing hearing on September 8.

  • More information will be coming; keep in touch with the Ad Hoc Committee at AdHoc4Reason@gmail.com

The conviction was insane to begin with, but imprisoning a social activist for the crime of photography is simply beyond the pale.

Drop the charges and free Gregory Koger.

That didn’t take long

Already, deranged Discovery Institute shill David Klinghoffer is blaming the hostage-taking nut James Lee’s actions on Darwinism.

Witness the recent examples of Holocaust Memorial Museum shooter James von Brunn, Columbine High School shooter Eric Harris, Jokela High School shooter Pekka Eric Auvinen. Historical figures who drew inspiration, if indirectly, from Darwinian theory include Charles Manson, Mao Tse-tung, Joseph Stalin, Josef Mengele, and of course Adolf Hitler. I’ve written about this many times before and received much abuse for it, not least when I took up the theme on the Huffington Post. (An editor advised me they will not let me do that again.)

Yes, Lee was apparently an atheist, and he attributed the need for his actions to a badly mangled version of Darwinism (although, really, a strict Darwinian fanatic probably wouldn’t rush to commit a violent act that could only end with him dead or incarcerated, and also wouldn’t be ranting about ending reproduction for his own species. I’d expect a truly fervent Darwinian to be avoiding risks and expending a great deal of effort in courtship, or at least frantically making lots of donations to the local sperm or ovum bank.) Yes, we can make lists of atheists or people who have fulminated superficially about Darwin who have done evil crimes. So? We can also make lists of Christians who have committed evil.

But let us be clear about a few things about godless Darwinians:

  • They don’t make claims that believing in Darwin will make you a good person.

  • They don’t make claims that taking courses in Darwinism will clear up your mental health issues.

  • Certified Darwinian counselors do not have free parking privileges so they can rush to the sick and dying to soothe them with a little doctrine in population genetics.

  • There is no Darwinist creed that justifies and encourages slaughtering creationists.

  • There are no Darwinist elites laying down fatwas against Discovery Channel executives, not even for Ghost Lab or Bear Grylls.

  • They do not seek salvation in the mixed bag of pop sci programming on a cable television station. Jamie and Adam are not our prophets, even if Mythbusters is pretty good, mostly.

  • There is no grassroots collection of Darwinist supporters lurking in the remote urban wilderness who would have sheltered James Lee while he was on the lam.

  • There was no supportive mob of god-hatin’ Darwin lovers converging on the Discovery Building to chant in support of James Lee.

  • There will be no surly academic Darwinists who will grumble “no comment” at reporters while gathering with the faithful to praise their heroic martyr, James Lee, in the privacy of their communes and revival meetings.

  • They all pretty much think James Lee was a mentally ill doofus who got everything wrong — at best a subject of pity.

  • There will be no conspiracy theories that James Lee was a good man set up by the Christian majority.

  • They will not be telling each other that James Lee will receive his reward for his righteous actions in Darwinist Paradise.

  • If he’d lived, James Lee would not have been given free legal help by the Society for the Study of Evolution, nor would they have hidden his crimes and helped him relocate to another regional chapter, which would not have been told about his violent proclivities.

  • There will be no secretive James Lee Society set up to work for reduced fertility and angrier television documentaries in his name.

  • No one will be writing generous op-eds in which James Lee is praised as a misguided figure with his heart in the right place, in the bosom of scientific thinking.

  • James von Brunn, Eric Harris, Pekka Eric Auvinen, and not even Manson, Mao, Stalin, Mengele, or Hitler are praised in any biology textbooks. James Lee will not, either.

  • An occasional lone nut spouting idiosyncratic visions of Darwinism does not change the fact that we have the scientific evidence on our side.

  • James Lee does not have a constituency, nor does he have any representatives working for his goals in congress.

  • James Lee did not increase his inclusive fitness.

I’m sorry, Mr Krazypants Klinghoffer, but there’s basically no way anyone can argue that James Lee was representative of any significant subgroup of evolutionary biologists, fans of Darwin, or freethinkers; he’s a sad, lonely outlier whose weird collection of confused ideas were a product of his isolation and mental illness, not any substantial strand of evolutionary theory.

Oh, and Hitler did not derive his ideas from Darwin: his primary intellectual antecedent would have been Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who detested anything to do with that Darwin fellow’s theory. You’ve had this explained to you often enough, that Hitler was if anything nominally Catholic, bizarrely pagan, and his ideas had nothing to do with science or with atheism, but you don’t care, I know. Is it any surprise that you’re considered too obtuse even for the Huffington Post?

Belief can be dangerous

Gullibility really does destroy lives. A Vietnamese couple in Australia, the Trans, were missing a purse, so they made mistake #1: they went to a fortune teller to find out where it was. Really, magic doesn’t work.

Mistake #2: the fortune teller told them that a young woman, Leilani dos Santos, who was living with them had stolen it. The fortune teller had no way of knowing, but made this potentially destructive accusation anyway.

Mistake #3: The Trans believed the fortune teller.

Mistake #4, and this is the really big one: The Trans believed that torture was an appropriate method of getting the purse back.

Ms Tran also allegedly told Ms dos Santos they would cut off her fingers, but they loved her and would inject her with heroin, so she would not feel it.

Ms dos Santos said Mr Tran beat her in the back with a meat cleaver, threatened her with a samurai sword and burnt her arm with a cigarette.

Ms dos Santos said the couple had a Lady Gaga CD playing loudly. “I was screaming,” she said. “I was hoping maybe somebody would break down the door and help me.”

Ms dos Santos eventually escaped, and the Trans are currently on trial. Let’s hope the court doesn’t make mistake #5 and let those insane people go — the Trans are clearly infected with a delusional belief system that they use to justify horrific acts against others.

I mean, really…Lady Gaga?