The gun fondlers just love the climate of fear

They even come right out and say it. Here’s Larry Pratt, of Gun Owners of America, pleased that fear of getting shot will keep congress in line.

I was told of a conversation that one of our members had had with a member of Congress. And he was lobbying on a gun issue, but he was, I knew the guy well enough to know that almost certainly he was mild-mannered, he was just explaining our position. And apropos of nothing, the congressman – congresswoman, actually – said, ‘You want to shoot me, don’t you.’ Well, that’s probably a healthy fear for them to have, even though that’s not the guy’s – he wasn’t saying anything about that, it wasn’t in his demeanor. But you know, I’m kind of glad that’s in the back of their minds. Hopefully they’ll behave.

Perhaps Larry Pratt ought to be politely shooed out of the halls of power as a barbarian who does not belong in the company of civilized lawmakers?

Debating tips from Ben Shapiro

I was reading these debating suggestions from a particularly stupid wingnut with the idea that I’d just do the opposite…until it sunk in that they’re so contradictory that I can’t even do that.

So to recap, the only way conservatives can win debates is to not look angry, while publicly shaming their opponent, punching first, and calling their opponents liars and haters. And remember: all of this is equivalent to futilely pinning some kind of gelatinous dessert to a wall.

I think it’s also got like three first steps, which means I’m going to have to grow another leg.

All gods sort of blur together, I guess

Sorry, gang. I thought this music video by Katy Perry was eminently forgettable pop, overproduced and not particularly interesting, but you get to see it anyway.

In case you had too much taste to bother, Katy Perry plays an ancient Egyptian pharoah — you know, pyramids, stilted poses, animal-headed gods, etc. — who disintegrates a series of suitors with magic and takes their treasure. Really, that’s it. Only one of the suitors (at about 1:10 in the video) is wearing a necklace with a squiggle in it that some Muslims claim resembles the name of Allah, so this video is a work of blasphemy. You’ll have to look very closely to even see it (also, it looks like the few frames where the emblem was visible have already been edited out).

disintegratingsuitor

I know! Why are Muslims upset? It’s all those followers of Anubis and Bastet and Osiris and so forth who ought to be up in arms! But it’s certain flaky weird Muslims who are posting a petition demanding that the video be taken down. Makes sense; the polytheistic religion of ancient Egypt, founded around 3100 BCE, and monotheistic Islam, founded around 600 CE, are so easily confused.

This is the reason for lodging the petition so that people from different walks of life, different religions and from different parts of the world, agree that the video promotes blasphemy, using the name of God in an irrelevant and distasteful manner would be considered inappropriate by any religion.

Isn’t it heartwarming that there are people who dedicate their time and effort to protecting the delicate sensibilities of invisible imaginary super-powerful beings?

Anyway, if you think Katy Perry needs some urging to resist the efforts of kooks to suppress her commercially lucrative work, there is a counter-petition. It seems superfluous to me, but OK.

The one question in my mind is why are fanatical Muslims stepping frame by frame through Katy Perry videos anyway?

Oh, lord, the stupid…

In the expected counterattack from sexists defending Ben Radford’s obtuse sexism, there are now demented dingbats accusing me of being a veritable MRA and implying that I’m some kind of hypocrite, because I have in the past been subject to an abortive false accusation. I mentioned this in a comment four years ago (some people are obsessive in following my every word, and I should be flattered, I suppose — I must be very interesting). Here’s the dry account of the event that I gave then:

I won’t meet privately with students either — I always keep my office door wide open, and when I’m working with students in the lab, I find excuses to move out and let them work on their own if it turns into a one-on-one event. I just can’t afford the risk.

I was also subject to accusations of harassment, once upon a time. A female student came into my lab when I was alone, unhappy about an exam grade, and openly threatened me — by going public with a story about a completely nonexistent sexual encounter right there.

Zoom, I was right out the door at that instant; asked a female grad student in the lab next door to sit with the student for a bit, and went straight to the chair of the department to explain the situation. I had to work fast, because I knew that if it turned into a he-said-she-said story, it wouldn’t matter that she was lying, it could get dragged out into an investigation that would easily destroy my career, no matter that I was innocent.

I was in a total panic, knowing full well how damaging that kind of accusation can be. Fortunately, I’d done the right thing by blowing it all wide open at the first hint of a threat, and getting witnesses on the spot.

There is nothing inconsistent about this. False accusations do happen, and they can have extremely damaging consequences (which I said previously: “Yes, they happen…rarely. They’re important to detect.”) Obviously, I had just explained that I certainly do know of at least one case in which a desperate student tried to cheat her way to a better grade with an accusation. It happens.

How I responded to that instance is just part of a protocol for how people should work together. Here’s what I do:

  • I don’t harass women, or anyone for that matter.

  • I maintain complete transparency. Not only do I not harass women, but any accusation that I do founders on the implausibility of the circumstance.

  • I deal with any potential situation by defusing it immediately. Not arguing, not protesting my innocence, not begging the person to refrain from hurting my reputation, but going straight to departmental authorities and explaining the situation. Again, transparency: the slander isn’t going to stick.

  • I bring in witnesses, preferably women too, who can testify to my innocence. And I don’t just mean people who will say I’m a nice guy, but witnesses to the incident who can describe all the details of the event.

  • I keep myself protected against false claims, which also means that I’m keeping my students protected from any harm. We all work just fine together, with nothing to hide.

  • I don’t sexually harass my students or colleagues. Period.

Not only is my reputation spotless, and honestly so, but there’s no way to even realistically bring such a charge against me. And of course the great majority of my interactions with students bear no risk of any such problems — we can trust each other.

But then, there are always people like those slimy ones, that minority of nasty untrustworthy liars commenting on Radford’s thread, who are happy to distort and make false accusations, and I deal with them in the same way that I did that earlier incident: with transparency and honesty and frank admission of what actually happened. I don’t deny that such unpleasant people exist, especially when so many of them are already populating that thread and the existence of contemptible liars is so apparent. But when one has no interest in harassing people, it turns out to be relatively easy to maintain one’s integrity — I don’t have years of stalkerish behavior and complaints and administrative disciplinary actions to make excuses for, unlike some people.

How delusional can climate change denialists get?

The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, was confronted by climate change denialists in a shareholders’ meeting; they demanded that he focus on return on investment and stop making changes to reduce emissions. MORE MONEY, please, and SCREW THE ENVIRONMENT. Cook made the right response.

What ensued was the only time I can recall seeing Tim Cook angry, and he categorically rejected the worldview behind the NCPPR’s advocacy. He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.

“When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind,” he said, “I don’t consider the bloody ROI.” He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader.

Nice words, but I’ll be happier when I see less exploitation of foreign workers, and let’s not have any illusions that tech corporations are friends to the planet. But I’ll acknowledge that at least Apple is taking a few steps in the right direction.

If you’re cynical enough, you could also wave away Cook’s response as self-promoting PR. But if you want a fun read, you should see the denialist’s counter-response. The National Center for Public Policy Research has issued an angry denunciation. I think they’re trying to persuade me to buy Apple stock.

“Although the National Center’s proposal did not receive the required votes to pass, millions of Apple shareholders now know that the company is involved with organizations that don’t appear to have the best interest of Apple’s investors in mind,” said Danhof. “Too often investors look at short-term returns and are unaware of corporate policy decisions that may affect long-term financial prospects. After today’s meeting, investors can be certain that Apple is wasting untold amounts of shareholder money to combat so-called climate change. The only remaining question is: how much?”

Wait…so the people who are all about profits now are complaining that Apple, by making some minimal efforts to address climate change, is failing to consider long term prospects? Madness. If that’s their question, I’ll just answer it with “Not enough.”

“Rather than opting for transparency, Apple opposed the National Center’s resolution,” noted Danhof. “Apple’s actions, from hiring of President Obama’s former head of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson, to its investments in supposedly 100 percent renewable data centers, to Cook’s antics at today’s meeting, appear to be geared more towards combating so-called climate change rather than developing new and innovative phones and computers.”

Whoa. The NCPPR is making Apple sound like a completely green company. Are we sure this isn’t just a PR front for Apple?

You know, I really like Apple products, and I have a fine collection of widgets with the Apple logo on them, but I have no illusions: Apple is first and foremost a company that makes lots and lots of money. Quarterly revenue of $38 billion and quarterly profit of $8 billion sorta says that they are rather focused on selling phones and computers. That the denialists would even think to argue otherwise is a testimonial to how delusional they are.

“Tim Cook, like every other American, is entitled to his own political views and to be an activist of any legal sort he likes on his own time,” said Amy Ridenour, chairman of the National Center for Public Policy Research. “And if Tim Cook, private citizen, does not care that over 95 percent of all climate models have over-forecast the extent of predicted global warming, and wishes to use those faulty models to lobby for government policies that raise prices, kill jobs and retard economic growth and extended lifespans in the Third World, he has a right to lobby as he likes. But as the CEO of a publicly-held corporation, Tim Cook has a responsibility to, consistent with the law, to make money for his investors. If he’d rather be CEO of the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, he should apply.”

Interesting. I remember when the denialists would argue that the planet wasn’t warming (oh, they still do, sometimes); now they’re reduced to complaining that we’re pumping more energy into the atmosphere, but it’s simply not quite as much as the models predicted. That’s progress, I suppose.

I still don’t see how they can argue that climate change won’t be economically disruptive, or that it is imprudent to try and deal with long-term environmental changes before they actually demolish the markets they love so much.

A commenter has pointed out an article about that odd 95% claim. It turns out that if a scientist publishes a prediction with an upper and lower bound, and the reality turns out to be pretty darned close to the center of the distribution, you can just point at the upper bound and claim he exaggerated. Brilliantly dishonest.

The Christians are climbing up on that cross again!

The dominant, oblivious majority in the US are once again preparing to moan about how oppressed and persecuted they are. The Christian Right is coming out with a movie quite literally called Persecuted, a drama about what they expect will happen to them in the next few years.

On the surface, "Persecuted" plays out like many government thrillers. Similar to movies based upon Tom Clancy novels, it has a hero with limited resources faced off against corrupt politicians and government officials. Central to the plot, though, is an effort by the president and his cronies to pass the "Faith and Fairness Act," which would be similar to a "fairness doctrine" for religious groups. If this law were passed, religious broadcasters would be required to present all religious points of view when presenting their own point of view.

The notion that such a law could actually be passed in the United States is not out of the realm of possibility, Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, explained to The Christian Post. The law is similar to a resolution that was passed at the United Nations about the defamation of religion.

"It’s backed predominantly by Islamic countries, but in the name of tolerance, so that they can criminalize defamation or defamatory speech so that you effectively become a criminal if you say Jesus is the only way, that becomes criminal. So it’s real," Sekulow said.

Do I need to point out that their fictional law, this “faith and fairness act,” is something atheists would oppose, and that atheist organizations, such as Atheist Ireland, have openly rejected the UN declarations against defamation of religion? And that American Christianity has a long tradition of supporting blasphemy laws? The closest thing to this imaginary “faith and fairness act” in this country isn’t official, but is the social sanction against people who dare to drop “under god” from our semi-mandatory loyalty oath, the pledge of allegiance.

Oh, wait, that’s right: Jay Sekulow is all in favor of requiring everyone to present the theistic point of view in that case — he was shit-spewing furious when a television broadcast dared to omit “under god” from the pledge. He’d love a version of that act that required everyone to acknowledge god all the time.

You know what is out of the realm of possibility? That the US would pass a law making it illegal to say “Jesus is the only way.” Christianity is a de facto standard to get elected to office, and no one dares to annoy faith-based bullshit artists ever. You know what is in the realm of possibility? That our nation, with its constitutional promise to never allow religion to meddle in government and vice versa, would make “In god we trust” our motto, slap it on all the currency, and demand that school children acknowledge our subservience to a god in a daily promise.

But that’s not what all the furor is about. You know what it is. It’s because those damn liberals are all insisting that it is perfectly reasonable to put contraception in an insurance package, and that it is also perfectly fair to expect employers to meet the needs of their employees. It’s because Christians are being told that they cannot pretend that gay people are not human. They have been told that their ignorant superstitions are hurting other people, and that while they are completely free to live lives in which they marry one person of a specified sex in a religious ceremony and have unprotected sex monogamously with them for the rest of their lives — jebus, that’s my lifestyle — they do not have the right to tell everyone else how to live their lives, nor do they have the right to punish people for not being Christian.

This seems to be a very difficult point to get across to some people.

Here’s a handy chart. Maybe this will help.

It says something that when these loons make a movie about how they’re being persecuted, they can’t openly say what offends them right now — that invariably makes them look like bigots — but have to invent an imaginary law and bring on hypocrites like Sekulow to claim that it is “real”. No, it’s not.

It’s got to be some kind of metaphor for something

The football stadium in Allen, Texas is a useful example for the dilemma of the rational world, and I’ve used it a few times in talks. It’s a beautiful stadium, built for a public high school, that cost $60 million. That’s stunning, that a school district in America can be so rich that they can raise that much money…and then they spend it on something as superficial as football. But here’s the rub for liberal America: there was nothing illegal in what the community of Allen did, and they raised the money in a democratic referendum, and a majority of the residents wanted this obscene temple to sports. Of course, at the same time, because we have an awful patchwork system of school funding, other districts 10 miles away from Allen are struggling on shoestring budgets and failing to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind act, so there is an injustice being done here — but we always hesitate to take action in these cases. I’d also rather see the people of Allen grow up and be inspired by learning to do better for their kids, than that someone come along and slap the football out of their hands and yell at them for being stupid.

Anyway, your schadenfreude for the day: the Allen High School stadium is closed. It’s already falling apart and has developed dangerous cracks.

Thousands of channels and nothing on

So much junk. So much failed ambition. It seems like even the cable channels that are set up with high purpose (hello, History/Discovery/Learning channels) immediately succumb to the lure of the lowest common denominator and turn into dreck, so where is The Sportsman Channel to go?

Wait, you say, the Sportsman Channel doesn’t sound that awful; sure, it’s not educational, maybe, but it could be about honest entertainment, and there’s nothing wrong with that. To which I reply, “SyFy channel.”

But what could a channel about hunting and fishing do to degrade their starting premise? Behold. Now you know, you can always dig through the floor of the basement.

[Read more…]

I get email

Fanatical Catholics are always good for a laugh.

I’m not sure to what degree you’ve studied the history of Christianity, but I assume you’re at least somewhat aware that the Catholic claim to a historic link from the time of Jesus to now is accurate.

Which explains how Catholic church services and doctrine is so precisely like what a poor first century Jew would have experienced.

Yes, there is a historic “link” from a Jesus cult in the ancient Mediterranean to the modern Catholic church. There are also historic links to pagan practices in Germany, the Mithraic cults from Persia, the political maneuvering in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE (which makes House of Cards look tame), etc. — syncretism is the rule, not the exception. The church has been evolving for as long as it existed, and when cladogenesis occurs, as in the Reformation, both branches are able to trace their lineage back to the same original set of founding events.

I’m not defending Protestantism, by the way. You’re both loony.

Since the historical record is clear, since we know that the Catholic church–contrary to Protestant propaganda–has supported science throughout the ages, why exactly does Western society have to conform to liberal cosmopolitan norms, by accepting matters such as gay marriage which run contrary to our culture?

The historical record is clear — all religions are products of their times. You can’t make a case for Catholic exceptionalism without some Protestant making a case for the new and superior revelations of Martin Luther, or Muslim making a case for their prophet, whom you neglect or revile.

Since you are so focused on the historical record, you are aware, are you not, that Catholicism formed in a very cosmopolitan culture, in the heart of the most powerful empire in the ancient world? The core of Catholicism is very urban. Visit Rome and see.

Oh, I can tell you’re just one of those conservative Catholics who believes that their current social beliefs have always been so, and seeks to justify their every kneejerk rejection of change by claiming that the founder of your religion would have agreed. Sorry, no. Paul of Tarsus might well have been a nasty homophobe and misogynist, but that doesn’t mean we have to be. Catholics have changed a lot in the last few centuries. You’ve changed how you handle marriage a lot…unless you’re also one of those reactionaries who thinks love is irrelevant and women should have no say in who they marry.

It just seems bizarre to me that every other culture around the world is allowed to keep their traditions but for whatever reason, in large part due to Protestant superstitions, we’re told we must abandon the Catholic tradition. You don’t see anything strange about that?

Protestants are squawking just as loudly as you are about gay marriage. Mormons are on your side in this issue, which ought to make you pause. This is not a conspiracy by organized religion to make Catholics suffer, so just crawl down off that cross.

I think it’s cute what you did there: Protestants have superstitions, but you have traditions. You really are peas in a pod.

Also, no one is making you change your traditions or telling you what to believe. You don’t have to get married to someone of the same sex. Your church doesn’t even have to carry out gay marriage ceremonies. You get to do as you want.

Except where it hurts people.

That’s the thing. Where you think you are just so fucking special because you’re Catholic, the rest of the world is trying to grow up and recognize that every one of us, gay or straight, man or woman, brown or pink, are human beings who deserve equal treatment under the law, and that ‘tradition’ is not a sufficient excuse to refuse some people their rights.

I would also ask how, if a pair of gay atheists marry, it makes you abandon your Catholic tradition? Or what if it’s a pair of liberal Lutherans, or a pair of ex-Catholics? Is it just violating your Catholic tradition of treating some people as less than human?

You don’t have to like the Catholic church but you must know that a lot of the science/faith nonsense was created by Protestant propagandists all too willing to exaggerate any little hiccup in Catholic land. They didn’t think the Earth was flat, I assume you know that. I know I’m a Catholic apologist but you should at least look fairly at matters such as the Inquisition and the Galileo trial, there are a lot of exaggerated stories about both.

No, the Catholic church has not been a defender of science. It has been a defender of its own power and its own dogma. Science that contradicts your silly beliefs is either slapped down or mangled to fit. And it has always done that.

The Catholic church does not actually support evolution, for instance. It supports a bastardized version of directed evolution (two words that contradict each other profoundly), with your god creating beings who resembled him in some way using evolution (again, nonsense) and then suddenly creating a distinct transition with magical ensoulment.

Galileo and the Inquisition…just “little hiccups in Catholic land”. Right. Sounds like Catholic history, to me: self-serving distortions everywhere.

I guess what I’m saying is that to be Catholic, truly Catholic, you can see just how wicked Protestants behaved (and can you not laugh at their ignorance of history, their belief that the Bible just appeared in English in the 17th century?), how blurred they made all of history, and how it’s a shame that they planted these seeds of confusion in this land. There is really no need to reconcile science with faith, whether you like it or not the Catholic church has always supported science.

Man, you really have a hate-on for Protestants, don’t you? Weird. I get Protestants who tell me how unchristian and evil Catholics are, too, you know. I think you’re both bonkers.

So, what century did the Bible appear, and in what languages was it composed? How was it assembled? Or is that too much sausage making for you?

Math with letters is a liberal conspiracy

There is no test for competence before any old yahoo can get elected to congress. Take Al Melvin, a Reagan Republican from Tucson, who recently joined in the vote against implementing the Common Core standards in Arizona. He has a fabulous reason for voting down the standards.

Pressed by Bradley for specifics, Melvin said he understands some of the reading material is borderline pornographic. And he said the program uses fuzzy math, substituting letters for numbers in some examples.

Holy crap! Math that uses letters? Abomination! I expect to see this become an important issue in the Republican Party platform.

Don’t tell him that the math also uses Arabic numbers, and that algebra comes from an Iranian (well, it was called Persia then) Muslim named Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī — he’ll die of apoplexy.

These are the people running the country. Fills you with confidence, doesn’t it?