Don’t vote for Tim Pawlenty!

Our awful ex-governor, Tim Pawlenty, is officially exploring a run for the presidency. Don’t do it, America. He’s what happens when you look behind the scenes at bad character actors from Prairie Home Companion and discover that they’re actually knee-jerk Republicans with no intellectual curiosity at all and talents that are only a step above performing in a morality play in their local conservative church.

Tim Pawlenty Exploratory Committee for President of the United States Visual Announcement from Tim Pawlenty on Vimeo.

The man says Ronald Reagan personified America! So the United States is a senile B-movie actor with militaristic fantasies, and who can be upstaged by a chimp? Why does he hate my country so?

Happiness is a warm gun

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Isn’t this charming: Utah has officially declared the Browning model 1911 semi-automatic pistol their official state gun. How lovely! I remember when our kids were growing up in Utah, one of their school assignments was to compile all of the state symbols into an illustrated report, so I knew the Utah state bird was the California gull, and the state insect was the honey bee, and the state fossil was Allosaurus, but they weren’t pasting pictures of firearms into their scrapbooks. That will all change now.

If I were helping a kid through the Utah school system, and I had to help them find pictures for that assignment, I’d point them to this page on the geography of gun deaths. It has some pretty illustrations.

Look! Utah is a lovely orange!

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This is also useful, but it might be a little difficult for elementary school kids…although it might be a springboard to teach them about statistics and correlations. Every fourth grader should know about those.

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So celebrate your gun culture, Utah! And celebrate poverty and ultra-conservative politics, too — they all go so well together.

Just another day in Rethuglican America

More authoritarian bills are working their way through congress. They simply have no restraint anymore, and are rushing hell-bent to create a police state.

Under a GOP-backed bill expected to sail through the House of Representatives, the Internal Revenue Service would be forced to police how Americans have paid for their abortions. To ensure that taxpayers complied with the law, IRS agents would have to investigate whether certain terminated pregnancies were the result of rape or incest. And one tax expert says that the measure could even lead to questions on tax forms: Have you had an abortion? Did you keep your receipt?

In testimony to a House taxation subcommittee on Wednesday, Thomas Barthold, the chief of staff of the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee, confirmed that one consequence of the Republicans’ “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” would be to turn IRS agents into abortion cops—that is, during an audit, they’d have to detemine, from evidence provided by the taxpayer, whether any tax benefit had been inappropriately used to pay for an abortion.

Why are they doing this? Because they are spoiled children who refuse to think that a few pennies from their pocket might end up helping some horrible woman who got pregnant.

(via Mike the Mad Biologist)

What is this ‘interfaith’ nonsense, anyway?

I concur with Ophelia Benson: “interfaith” is a code word for the religious clubhouse. It’s used to exclude secularism and promote a unity of faith, any faith, where it doesn’t matter what BS you believe, as long as you really, really believe. I think we ought to rename the ideology of all those people who cheerfully and indiscriminately embrace every faith without regard for content as “tinkerbellism”.

That our government is embracing all faiths is just as much a violation of the separation of church and state as if they were to declare Episcopalianism as the state religion…its only political virtue is that it doesn’t antagonize any of the other superstitions.

So that’s what they mean by the “War on Poverty”

Minnesota is leading the way. Our Rethuglicans have figured out how to end poverty: by making it illegal to have money if you’re poor? Wait, that makes no sense.

Minnesota Republicans are pushing legislation that would make it a crime for people on public assistance to have more $20 in cash in their pockets any given month.

Lest you think our most contemptible lawmakers have no heart at all, consider that this is the generous version of their earlier plan.

This represents a change from their initial proposal, which banned them from having any money at all.

I’m not sure what they’re thinking. If they’re so poor, the only way they could have any money is if they stole it from a rich guy? Or something? Maybe they’re just setting up a perfect Catch 22: now the police can roust someone who looks poor, and if they’ve got no money, send them to jail for vagrancy; if they’ve got more than $20, arrest them for possession of illegal currency.

Some people don’t believe me. Here’s the link to the proposed legislation. They want to give all benefits via a debit card so they can restrict and monitor purchases. And if this is their sole source of income, that means they’re only allowed a cash allowance of $20/month. Control, control, control.

Section 1. [256.9870] ELECTRONIC BENEFIT TRANSFER DEBIT CARD.
Subdivision 1. Electronic benefit transfer or EBT debit card. (a) Electronic
benefit transfer (EBT) debit cardholders in the general assistance program and the
Minnesota supplemental aid program under chapter 256D and programs under chapter
256J are prohibited from withdrawing cash from an automatic teller machine or receiving
cash from vendors with the EBT debit card. The EBT debit card may only be used as a debit card.
(b) Beginning July 1, 2011, cash benefits for programs listed under paragraph (a)
must be issued on a separate EBT card with the head of household’s name printed on the
card. The card must also state that “It is unlawful to use this card to purchase tobacco
products or alcoholic beverages.” This card must be issued within 30 calendar days of
an eligibility determination. During the initial 30 calendar days of eligibility, a recipient
may have cash benefits issued on an EBT card without the recipient’s name printed on the
card. This card may be the same card on which food support is issued and does not need
to meet the requirements of this section.
(c) Notwithstanding paragraph (a), EBT cardholders may opt to have up to $20
per month accessible via automatic teller machine or receive up to $20 cash back from a vendor.

It is true, biology programs discriminate against idiots all the time

Texas, you are a wonder. You don’t have any protections against workplace discrimination on the basis of sex or gender — that might hurt bidness, you know — but you’re considering a bill to protect creationists from discrimination.

HB 2454

Sec.A51.979.A A PROHIBITION OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON RESEARCH RELATED TO INTELLIGENT DESIGN. An institution of higher education may not discriminate against or penalize in any manner, especially with regard to employment or academic support, a faculty member or student based on the faculty member’s or student’s conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design or other alternate theories of the origination and development of organisms.

I understand how discrimination rules work in employment: for instance, when we’re looking at job applications, we have to justify every rejection as well as our acceptance of the person we want to hire; when we develop a list of candidates we want to interview, it’s sent off to the administration for review. If we said we wanted to do phone interviews of six candidates, and all of them were men, they’d look at the applicant pool and tell us if we were somehow biased against women.

I’m wondering, though, how this one will work. Will a Texas biology program have to send their list to an administration that will scrutinize them and tell them they need to include more creationists in their interviews?

I would also like to see what kind of creationist “research” these faculty and students are thought to be doing. Sitting around reading a Bible isn’t science.

Why I am an amoral, family-hating monster…and Newt Gingrich isn’t

Today is my wedding anniversary. I’ve been married to the same woman for 31 years, without ever straying. Newt Gingrich has been married 3 times, divorced one wife while she was recovering from surgery, and has had extra-marital affairs.

Guess who is considered the defender of traditional sexual morality?

It’s a strange situation where the political party with more ex-wives than candidates, that houses and defends a disturbingly amoral network of fundamentalist operators is regarded as the protector of the sanctity of the family. They’re anything but.

I think I understand, though — it doesn’t matter what you do, all that matters is what you say. The Republicans support a version of marriage that rests on tradition, authority, and masculine dominance, and everything they do props up one leg of the tripod or the other. Public piety reinforces religious tradition; the insistence that there is one true form of marriage, between a man and a woman, which represents a legal and social commitment is part of the authoritarian impulse; and of course, if a man steps out of the matrimonial bounds, it’s an expression of machismo and patriotism and entitlement.

There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and that things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing it. I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness.

Gingrich was cheating on his wife, but it’s OK — because he also tells us that it was wrong and inexcusable, and then he wraps it all up in God and country to make excuses for it. Hypocrisy is acceptable as long as the right words are said to reinforce the public face of propriety.

Now look at those dirty rotten hippies, like me. We say the ties between a couple should be made with respect and affection, not the strictures of law and precedent; letting gays marry, for instance, strengthens the public approval of our kinds of bond, while weakening the authoritarian bonds. Our ideal is a community of equals, while theirs is a hierarchy of power, a relic of Old Testament values in which marrying a woman was like buying a camel, a certification of ownership, and nothing must compromise the Big Man’s possession of properties.

If we strip marriage of the asymmetry of power, as we must if we allow men to marry men and women to marry women, then we also strip away the man and wife, dominant and submissive, owner and owned, master and servant relationship that characterizes the conservative view of marriage. This is what they want to preserve, and this is what they are talking about when people like Gingrich echo those tired phrases about “Judeo-Christian values” and complain that their “civilization is under attack”. And it is, when we challenge their right to treat one partner, so-called, as chattel.

And once you look at it that way, you see no abuse of their values when Gingrich goes tomcatting around—he’s simply asserting his traditional privilege as the Man.

Paradoxically, though, it turns marriage into a brittle business where women are stressed by subservience and oppression (believe it or not, women are human beings who might resent being treated as servants), and men feel it is their right possess any woman willing to surrender to them. It’s not surprising that their relationships break up in courtroom battles.

I don’t condemn Gingrich for getting divorced, since it just means that so far he has managed to make a couple of women very happy twice. It’s also paradoxical that I see absolutely no problem in dissolving those bonds — if two people aren’t happy together, they should separate — and that that attitude can also make a marriage stronger.

I know. I’ve been married for 31 years, and my relationship with my wife is solid. Not because I’ve got her shackled with a prenup, a pile of legal documents, and a willingness to abuse her to keep her in her place, but because we’re comfortable together, she with me and me with her, and there’s no stresses that might tear us apart. With both of us in academic careers, there have been years where we’ve had to live apart, and those separations have been made with complete trust in one another — while we’ve both had times when we’ve “worked far too hard,” and we’ve been “driven” by passions for our work, strangely enough it never seems to have the side effect of sending us shopping for a different mate.

So, just a suggestion: if you want a relationship that lasts, don’t rely on god, lawyers, and social pressure to force it to work. Love and reciprocal trust are the only chains that last, and the only ones that make you feel happy while wearing them.

I think those are the “secular, atheist” values that Newt and his ilk find heretical and threatening. Those values allow me to sit smug and content in a happy home while watching authoritarians discard wives.

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Michele Bachmann writes a letter

Minnesota’s own pious Republican idiot (uh-oh, I repeated myself three times) has chastised Obama for his wickedness in a recent letter. His crimes are many. In a recent speech in Indonesia, he 1) referred to our national motto as E pluribus unum, not “In god we trust”, 2) quoted a small part of the Declaration of Independence that did not include the word “Creator”, and 3) mentioned that the US is unified under one flag without saying the magic phrase, “under god”. Now I know that Bachmann is an amazing expert in American history, so I think Obama should give this letter all the attention it deserves. The historicity of her complaints in this letter are thoroughly documented.

However, I’m afraid I must bring something even more significant to everyone’s attention. Recently, Ms Bachmann had a national platform in which to discuss important issues: she gave the Teabagger response to the President’s State of the Union address, and I notice something terrifying in the text of that speech.

She fails to acknowledge any gods anywhere in the speech, except as an afterthought in the very last sentence. Never mind that the speech was total BS, by her own standards, she must demand a retraction and apology from herself for its appalling absence of public piety.

I must also note something else. She is a woman. She is also working outside the home. And she has displaced a man, who could be holding down the position she is occupying. Under normal conditions, this would not be a problem, except that Ms Bachmann would like to return our country to the high moral state that it held in the 17th century, before the Enlightenment and secularism tainted our government with its ungodly latin motto of E pluribus unum, and impious independent women who deprived men of their exalted status really are guilty of a great crime.

Therefore, Michele Bachmann is a witch. I demand that we put her to the test.

Somebody tell them…Dickens’ London was not a utopia

Jane Cunningham, a Rethuglican (of course), has sponsored a bill in the Missouri congress that will disillusion you a little further today. Behold, SB 222!

This act modifies the child labor laws. It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed. It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed. Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished. It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ. It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment.

OK, that’s enough. I’m not reading any more email this morning. Instead, I think I’ll zip down to the liquor store and pick up a gallon jug of rum and curl up in a corner, weeping.

Damn, no. We’re in the middle of a storm with 35-50 mph winds howling outside. I guess I’m just going to have to face this universe sober.

Markey is a hero, Rethuglicans are morons

Lately, I’ve completely given up on giving any credit to the Rethuglican party at all — where once I could have grudgingly admitted that perhaps some conservative policies were sensible, the current party is no longer conservative, but simply insane. As an example, I give you The Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, a Republican-sponsored, Republican-promoted exercise in outright science denial blessed by Koch Industries.

To amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas due to concerns regarding possible climate change, and for other purposes.

It simply blatantly redefines “pollutant” to exclude carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and any other substance that science might discover contributes to climate change, and says the EPA cannot regulate them. As you might guess, the oil and coal companies, as well as agribusiness, are drooling over the prospect of gutting the EPA.

The hearings on this bill have been a series of scientists testifying to the lunacy of it all, with Rethuglican ignoramuses responding with canards and stupidities. One guy did stand up for reason, Representative Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachussetts.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to a bill that overturns the scientific finding that pollution is harming our people and our planet.

However, I won’t physically rise, because I’m worried that Republicans will overturn the law of gravity, sending us floating about the room.

I won’t call for the sunlight of additional hearings, for fear that Republicans might excommunicate the finding that the Earth revolves around the sun.

Instead, I’ll embody Newton’s third law of motion and be an equal and opposing force against this attack on science and on laws that will reduce America’s importation of foreign oil.

This bill will live in the House while simultaneously being dead in the Senate. It will be a legislative Schrodinger’s cat killed by the quantum mechanics of the legislative process!

Arbitrary rejection of scientific fact will not cause us to rise from our seats today. But with this bill, pollution levels will rise. Oil imports will rise. Temperatures will rise.

And with that, I yield back the balance of my time. That is, unless a rejection of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is somewhere in the chair’s amendment pile.

That last remark is a little bit unfortunate, since the fundagelical zealots actually do hate the theory of relativity. They really are that crazy.

My hat is off to Ed Markey, and right now, I’d like to make him president. Unfortunately, the Rethuglican chaired and dominated House energy and commerce committee subsequently proceeded to approve the bill.

Do you get that?

The Republicans have decreed that pollutants are not pollutants, therefore we can ignore them.