Some local reactions

Our campus has an alternative right-wing rag of a newspaper called the Counterweight, funded who knows how, that throws up horrible little articles that usually sound like the kind of thing that would make Karl Rove and Dick Cheney chortle. They interviewed me recently — yes, I speak politely to even the most conservative students on campus — for a pair of opinion articles of the battling ‘he was right’/’he was evil’ variety, all on the desecration controversy. You can read them both online. The student who was taking my side framed it as an issue of opposition to political correctness, especially campus speech codes, which may be one of the rare, narrow instances where the paper and I might agree.

The student who was arguing against me couldn’t spell my name consistently, claimed my actions were “far beyond decent”, and got the facts wrong, claiming I’d surrounded the cracker with anti-semitic articles. Oh, he will go far in the Republican party, I can tell.

Do Republicans think at all?

The mayor of Fort Mill, South Carolina forwarded one of those stupid chain emails that throws around absurd accusations — in this case, the Bible predicted that the anti-christ would be a Muslim in his 40s, and that Barack Obama was therefore the anti-christ. There is so much wrong there; Obama is not a Muslim, the Bible doesn’t say such a thing (especially since it was written before Islam), and you would expect such a devout Christian to know this. But he sent it on anyway.

Now if he were somebody of normal intelligence, at this point he’d be saying, “oops, hit the wrong button, I meant to hit delete…”. But no. He’s making excuses.

Fort Mill Mayor Danny Funderburk says he was “just curious” when he forwarded a chain e-mail suggesting Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is the biblical antichrist. “I was just curious if there was any validity to it,” Funderburk said in a telephone interview. “I was trying to get documentation if there was any scripture to back it up.”

Well. Think that one through. So Funderburk’s way to get to the truth of a scurrilous claim is to simply repeat it to a bunch of other people? And the kind of evidence he’d accept to debunk it is scriptural?

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Shoulda gone to church today

Today is Pulpit Freedom Sunday, that day when the wingnut churches were all planning to preach endorsements of political candidates in defiance of the restrictions imposed on them by their tax-exampt status. I hope the IRS harvests a windfall here — it’s simply absurd that they can demand freedom from taxation because they are religious organizations caring for the spiritual needs of their flocks, and then turn around and demand that they also be given the right to be a political organization. It’s one or the other. Let the preachers preach for McCain/Palin, but not on the government’s dime.

The organizers of Pulpit Freedom Sunday are convinced that the protest will result in a court challenge to the law. Mr. Stanley said the law was so unclear that, “I anticipate getting to federal court, certainly the appeals court.” But Robert W. Tuttle, a professor of law and religion at the George Washington University Law School, found that unlikely.

“It’s settled law,” Professor Tuttle said. “People can unsettle law that’s settled, but I think that it is very, very unlikely that a lower federal court would reach any other conclusion except that religious organizations have no constitutional right to engage in political speech while accepting deductible contributions.”

Speaking of settled law, wouldn’t it be nice to really shake things up and strip all churches of their tax exemptions? I know there’d be an immediate roar of protest from all churches everywhere that would have some political cost, but after 9/10ths of the churches fold, and after cities enjoy the sudden filling of the voids in their municipal tax base, and after the financial crisis is resolved, we’d be better off.

Chicken

Unbelievable—John McCain runs away and begs for the imminent presidential debate to be delayed, citing the need to address the financial crisis, as if he actually matters and has a plan other than to do whatever the Bush administration orders.

I smell fear.

I was sent a great suggestion: if McCain is going to be curled up in a foetal position somewhere, perhaps they should have the vice-presidential debate instead. She’s ready, right?

Nature discusses the US election

Good ol’ UK-based Nature has a special section dedicated to the US election. I’m not surprised — the whole world has a stake in this one, and I sure hope we don’t disappoint them, for our sake and theirs. Both presidential candidates were asked their opinion on various issues of science policy, and the answers are publicly available, in two parts. Unsurprisingly, only Obama bothered to reply; in an attempt to be fair, Nature dug through McCain’s old speeches to charitably cobble up the kind of answers he might have given if a) he weren’t an incompetent old coot who can’t get his act together, b) he actually cared what the universe outside the right-wing electorate thought, and c) he wasn’t going to heedlessly gut science as quickly as possible if given the opportunity.

If only they’d gotten Sarah Palin to submit something…but since Nature is not Punch, they probably thought that throwing a comedy routine into a prestigious science journal would be inappropriate.

I did like this short, sweet answer:

Do you believe that evolution by means of natural selection is a sufficient explanation for the variety and complexity of life on Earth? Should intelligent design, or some derivative thereof, be taught in science class in public schools?

Obama: I believe in evolution, and I support the strong consensus of the scientific community that evolution is scientifically validated. I do not believe it is helpful to our students to cloud discussions of science with non-scientific theories like intelligent design that are not subject to experimental scrutiny.

(Before you jump on him about using the word “believe”, read this.)

I also thought this one was very good. Science is an international enterprise, but it would be selfishly nice if my country did more to recruit and support it.

Would it make sense for more overseas students who receive PhDs at American universities to stay in the country and contribute to its research base and its wealth? What immigration reforms would you support?

Obama: I believe that we must enact comprehensive immigration reform to restore our economic strength, relieve local governments of unfair burdens stemming from an inefficient federal immigration system, ensure that our country and borders remain secure and allow a path to citizenship for the 12 million undocumented immigrants who are willing to pay a fine, pay taxes, and learn English. A critical part of comprehensive immigration reform is turning back misguided policies that since 9/11 have turned away the world’s best and brightest from America. As president, I will improve our legal permanent resident visa programmes and temporary programmes to attract some of the world’s most talented people to America.

My enthusiasm is not unreserved, but I know exactly who I’ll be voting for in November.

I don’t want to be healed by Jesus, I want real medicine

We have a new euphemism and a potential new regulation from the Bush administration: “provider conscience rights”. What this is about is providing religious doctors with loopholes so that they can avoid responsibility for treating patients with the best possible care — so they can use religious excuses to justify neglect. You can read the press release, Regulation Proposed to Help Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination, and of course the odious Mike Leavitt has mentioned it. This is a proposed new rule that if, for instance, a doctor with superstitious scruples is treating a rape victim, he would not only be allowed to refuse her emergency contraception, he wouldn’t even be required to refer her to someone who could give it to her, or even mention that the option existed. Apparently, the ignorant dogma of the health care provider supersedes the right of the patient to informed consent and appropriate care.

This is open for commentary for the next few days. Again, I notice the web page has a bizarrely twisted title: “Ensuring that Department of Health and Human Services Funds Do Not Support Coercive or Discriminatory Policies or Practices In Violation of Federal Law”. Now asking that doctors behave ethically with respect for the rights of the patient is now “coercive”. Who cares about the patient, though? Isn’t medicine all about the doctor imposing his or her will, right down to his arbitrary beliefs about deities, on the patient?

Lois Uttley, a well-known defender of patient rights, has spelled out a few general principles which are being defied by this new regulation. Maybe you could use some of these when expressing your objections.

Principles of a Progressive Response:

  1. The welfare of the patient must be at the center of medical
    decision-making and treatment.
  2. The religious/moral beliefs of a caregiver or religious doctrine of a
    health care institution cannot be allowed to obstruct a patient’s access to
    care.
  3. Patients must be able to make treatment decisions based on accurate
    medical information and their own ethical or religious beliefs.

Protecting Patients’ Rights: Five Key Principles

  1. A patient’s right to informed consent must be paramount. No information
    may be withheld.
  2. Health care institutions must provide emergency care immediately, without
    exception.
  3. For non-emergency care, referrals must be made if treatment is refused.
  4. The ability of non-objecting health practitioners to serve their patients
    must be safeguarded. No physician “gag rules” should be allowed.
  5. Institutional treatment restrictions must be disclosed to patients in
    advance.

Get out there and speak out for your right to not be bound by your doctor’s freaky religion. This is especially important for women, since anything to do with reproduction seems most likely to induce gibbering meltdowns among the religious right — and they’re going to use their delusions to deny you good healthcare.

We are all screwed, aren’t we?

Now that I’ve had the current banking disaster explained to me (short answer: the people responsible will be receiving a huge handout from the taxpayers), I can understand why Obama has decided to quit. It makes sense. Whoever wins the election is going to be in for a world of pain and hard work, if they take the job seriously.

Oh, wait…McCain has already signaled that he won’t be taking it seriously.

The McCain record on the environment

John McCain made some pleasant noises about supporting science in his Science Debate 2008 responses. They were outright lies, however. If you want to get pissed off at a politician, read the analysis of McCain’s voting record on environmental and alternative energy issues. His voting record is nearly indistinguishable from James Inhofe’s — he has routinely either skipped out on crucial votes or voted against renewable energy and environmental conservation.

And it’s not just the environment! If you want to be really frightened, read what he said about health care:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

He wants to do to health care what the Republican party has done to the economy!

Judge him by what he has done, not what he says he has done, because the straight-talk express seems to be a twisty bunch of lies and detours that never gets to its promised destination.