We drove by fields of sunflowers the other day, which was a nice change from the usual endless fields of corn and soybeans.
And now I see that Caine also has sunflowers on her mind.
Maki Naro has a very good overview of the Zika virus in comic form.
The effects of the virus are actually easy to understand: mild, flu-like symptoms in adults, but a significant chance of debilitating brain damage to developing fetuses. You don’t want to get Zika because it’s unpleasant and nasty, but your fetus must be protected from it because it’s devastating.
Unfortunately, the USA has a dysfunctional congress that can’t respond to serious problems anymore. An effort to dedicate money (to the tune of almost two billion dollars) to preventing the spread of the disease was killed because Republicans loaded it with irrelevant, poisonous addenda — baggage to snipe at Planned Parenthood (an organization that is vital to putting together a response) or to allow Confederate flags to fly, for instance.
But especially unfortunately, diseases that cause birth defects are a vector for the pro-life-at-any-cost fanatics to gallop in and wreck any process with their delusional antics. We are supposed to love that tiny slug of human fetal tissue so much that we’ll defy any attempt to combat a virus that will poison its nervous system, and don’t you dare think about abortions. A fetal slug with a deformed, shriveled brain is still to be regarded as a full human person!
If you think I’m making this up, listen to Marco Rubio.
Obviously, microcephaly is a terrible prenatal condition that kids are born with. And when they are, it’s a lifetime of difficulties. So I get it.
I’m not pretending to you that that’s an easy question you asked me. But I’m pro-life. And I’m strongly pro-life. I believe all human life should be protected by our law, irrespective of the circumstances or condition of that life.
No, he doesn’t get it. He’s lying.
He also doesn’t believe in protecting life, because he’s also in favor of the death penalty, and in fact thinks the big problem with capital punishment is that we don’t shuffle the condemned into the death machine fast enough.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump thinks we have Zika under control, and is praising Florida governor Rick Scott for how he’s handling it. His little PR helpers are arguing for inaction because birth defects are nothing new.
The United States has been paralyzed by the Republican virus. They know nothing, they do nothing, and they actively interfere with necessary responses to problems. We need to do something about that. Never vote for any Republican, ever.
This long list (taken from The Atlantic) is a collection of prominent Republicans who have endorsed Donald Trump for president. That they’ve done so already speaks poorly of their character.
Bob Dole
John Boehner
Trent Lott
Dick Cheney
Newt Gingrich
Reince Priebus
Rick Perry
Mike Huckabee
Bobby Jindal
Eric Cantor
Ben Carson
Rick Santorum
Herman Cain
Paul Ryan
Kevin McCarthy
Steve Scalise
Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Raul Labrador
Mitch McConnell
Jeff Sessions
John McCain
Kelly Ayotte
Rand Paul
Marco Rubio
Rob Portman
Richard Burr
Roy Blunt
Ron Johnson
Pat Toomey
Tom Cotton
Bob Corker
Orrin Hatch
Tim Scott
John Cornyn
Chris Christie
Paul LePage
Nikki Haley
Pete Ricketts
Mike Pence
Pat McCrory
Scott Walker
Donald Rumsfeld
Ann Coulter
Bill O’Reilly
Sean Hannity
Matt Drudge
Sarah Palin
Rush Limbaugh
Rupert Murdoch
Michael Reagan
Hugh Hewitt
Sheldon Adelson
Peter Thiel
Stanly Hubbard
T. Boone Pickens
Foster Friess
Woody Johnson
Mel Sembler
Jerry Falwell
Ralph Reed
James Dobson
Richard Land
Given Trump’s latest outrage — suggesting that assassination would be a possible way to prevent Hillary Clinton from appointing judges who would restrict gun ownership — it’s time for these people to do the right thing and renounce the man.
Not that I expect they will.
His behavior is beyond the pale. A demagogue has now broached the idea of murdering his democratic opponent to a mob of dangerous loons.
These loons.
I call that incitement to violence.
One of those absurdly vile and perpetually smug Christians is complaining about the FFRF reminding a police department that they are a secular organization that is supposed to serve all citizens. The FFRF informed the police department of Oviedo, Florida that their awards ceremony violated the separation of church and state. This prompts this angry Christian to a rebuke.
The absurdly vile and perpetually smug Freedom From Religion Foundation claims to have just given a Florida police chief “constitutional lessons” following a clearly contentious departmental awards ceremony last month.
The offending event? It was an awards ceremony for officers, which just happened to be held in the multi-purpose building of a seminary.
Seriously. That’s it.
Oh, and because they actually dared to take two minutes out of an otherwise secular, non-religious ceremony to offer an invocation. Which is apparently all it takes to cause militant atheists’ heads to spin around and explode.
The police chief made a remarkably clueless excuse.
“Our Annual Awards Ceremony and Career Track Recognition was not held in a church,” Chudnow pointed out in his written response to FFRF. “Yes, the even was held at the Reformed Theological Seminary complex, but in a multi-purpose room and not a religious sanctuary.”
“Finally, as a practicing member of the Jewish faith, I was not offended by the invocation, nor did I receive any complaints from any attendees,” Chudnow added.
None of those excuses work.
So now a placed called “the Reformed Theological Seminary” is not a religious institution? That’s amazing. It’s about as silly as the argument that Christmas is a secular holiday (I’m fine with that, it just means we won the War on Christmas. Apparently, we’re also winning the war on Reformed Theological Seminaries.)
That one individual is not offended is irrelevant. You could find a member of the KKK who is not offended by burning a cross on someone’s lawn, too. The question is whether other people of a different faith (or no faith) would feel excluded or disinclined to participate in what should be a secular event because it was unnecessarily colored with religious overtones.
His last argument is particularly ridiculous. He is the boss. He has authority that can be misused. Of course people kept quiet.
I’d also point out that anyone who objected to the religious nonsense would not have attended, and so would be in no position to complain.
I was actually most fascinated by the comments at that fanatically Christian site. Guess what they wanted to complain about?
The Muslims.
There’s nothing about Islam in the ceremony, nothing about Islam in the FFRF’s complaint, not even one word about Muslims in the bitter Christian’s diatribe…yet that’s what the commenters rave about.
CAN ANYONE TELL ME………
Do these secular demons ALSO go after Muslims…..
I’ve heard quite enough on the subject of Separation of church and state – a made-up agenda.
BUT HOW ABOUT SOME SEPARATION OF MOSQUE AND STATE……..those Muslims can do anything, anywhere. I don’t understand it.
If they’re just a religion, let’s subject them to the same strictures as Christians.
If they’re more than just religion, let’s not give them the protections of religion.
Bizarre. If Muslims possessed secular authority, and then tried to muddy it with religious rituals, of course the FFRF would be sending them polite letters and telling them to stop or their lawyers would spring into action. But here’s the thing: Muslims are a tiny minority in the USA. They don’t have the numbers to use their majority as an oppressive tool to compel non-Muslims to participate in their rituals. Christians do. They are subject to exactly the same restrictions as Christians — the problem is that Christians have an entitled status and regard any attempts to curtail their privilege to proselytize as unfair.
You know damn well what would happen to the Asstheists if they went after Islam…remember the beheadings on the beach? Or casting non-Islam believers (e.g., Asstheists) over into the ocean IN A LOCKED CELL?, or slitting throats? Yep…no asstheists need to bother getting after the the Muslims!
You knew that was coming. Did you know all Muslims believe in decapitation and throat slitting and murder and terrorism, and that atheists are afraid to criticize them? You probably didn’t, because it’s not true.
And here we go again…
Christians are just easier pickings because they don’t threaten to cut off your head. Muslims frequently irritate them.But when push comes to shove, Satan is the father of both. In all fairness, some Muslims are less radical and really would like to know God. They have just been taught lies about his nature and character. When they get radically saved they become the most awesome Christians.
No Muslim has ever threatened to cut off my head. But Christians regularly threaten my job, rage about expelling atheists from the country, and call me unAmerican. They even expect me to sit through their inappropriate religious ceremonies without complaint. I assure you that I personally feel far more threatened by Christianity than I do about any other religion, because Christianity has a huge amount of social and political power here.
The assumption that ‘converting the heathen’ is desirable is also exactly why the FFRF has to be diligent in checking the power of Christians in America, too.
Muzzies are the new protected minority for some sick reason. They will kill the lefties first.
Right. <Ethnic slur> is being treated too nicely! It’s OK to call them names and deny them the same rights Christians have, because they all want to kill us!
Yeesh. If only they had the ability to look in a mirror, maybe they’d realize why the FFRF needs to send out all these letters to smug Christians.
It’s lunchtime!
Oh, hang on a sec, Jennifer Raff has a new post up. About…the history of human cannibalism?
Lunchtime is over!
By the way, Raff will be a speaker at Skepticon, giving you yet another reason to go.
I have not been watching the Olympics, so I missed the latest embarrassing spectacle. Athletes are showing up for their competition with great big circular bruises all over their bodies.
They’re cupping to, they imagine, improve their performance. Orac has the rundown on the pointless wickedness of the practice.
This kind of woo does no good and does nothing but harm. But it also hurts the sport in another way.
I am not a sports fan, but I can respect the athletes for their discipline and their commitment. When I do watch them, I admire their skill and their grace and their strength. And then I see them willingly scarred with pseudoscience and all that respect evaporates — these people are idiots.
@DrSkySkull went to see Suicide Squad, and claimed that it was better than the reviews said.
I *definitely* don't think that #SuicideSquad merits the low – what was it? – 23% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
— skullsinthestars (@drskyskull) August 7, 2016
I took that as a challenge, so I held my nose and went to the theater last night. He was right, and he was wrong. It’s not as bad as the worst reviews say, but it also fails to reach the minimal level of what I expect from a good movie. It’s incoherent, over-stuffed, and ultimately nonsensical. Most of the characters are unpleasant and there are so many of them, that none of them are developed in any interesting way.
But a lot of the problems aren’t problems with this specific movie, but with the whole genre. Superhero movies are being made with a cookie cutter, and the only difference is the color of the sprinkles on top.
I call it the “flat weightless apocalypse” problem.
Flat: There’s a kind of pseudo-diversity to the characters, and you must have noticed this. The Avengers are a team to fight invading aliens. They’ve got a literal god fighting for them…and a guy with a bow and arrow. The Suicide Squad has a man who is a walking flamethrower, incinerating his enemies with a wave of his hands, and it’s got crazy woman with a baseball bat. This makes no sense. You’re building a team to take on threats of the level of Superman, and you pick up some random psychotic violent lady at the local asylum? Why? Because she looks sexy in her booty shorts? (Don’t answer that, I know the answer. It’s “yes”.)
There isn’t a good solution to this problem, either. The X-Men franchise stocks their movies with milling hordes of people with over-the-top superpowers, and you end up not caring.
Weightless: People die all over the place in these movies. In Suicide Squad and evil witch turns the innocent citizens of a metropolitan area into hideous blob-headed monsters who attack the ‘heroes’ and are gunned down en masse. The city is a wrecked ruin. Helicopters crash in the streets every few minutes, it seems. This is all shrugged off or ignored, because we have to care about the action hero who wants to be reunited with his little girl. What about all the little girls crushed under debris or set on fire by flaming helicopter fuel or turned into slimy vicious monsters by an evil witch, huh?
Apocalypse: Every time. There is an existential threat to the entire world which can be neatly blamed on a single villain, and that can be solved with punching. And the villain is always completely inscrutable: why do they want to destroy the world? Because they’re evil, that’s why. How about a little moral ambiguity sometime? How about if we see someone dealing with a more complex and subtle problem?
So I might agree with @DrSkySkull that it’s not that much worse than other super-movies, but I’d also have to say that the genre is imploding over its own limitations, and Suicide Squad is simply another example of a universal problem.
We got out and voted in the Minnesota primary this morning. We were the first ones there — I was #1! — and it looks like it’ll be a low turnout. Get out and vote! If you’re not a Minnesotan, here’s a list of important election dates all across the country.
I also read a piece by Charles Pierce which filled me with horror. There are vague noises, which I hope are entirely false, that Clinton wants to consult with…Henry Goddamn Motherfucking Kissinger on foreign policy.
On Monday, there was a fascinating piece in Tiger Beat On The Potomac in which some unnamed people in the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton whispered to a reporter that the campaign was sending out feelers to what the story laughingly referred to as the foreign-policy “elders” of the Republican Party. The list of foreign policy “elders,” according to TBOTP’s sources, included the following examples of the Republican Undead:
Henry Kissinger: war criminal and abettor of abattoirs around the world.
James Baker: political survivor, mastermind of the Great Florida Ratfck of 2000, Bush family retainer.
George Schultz: potential Iran-Contra stool pigeon.
Condoleezza Rice: National Security Advisor during Worst National Security Disaster in U.S. History.
No. No no no no no. This is not tolerable. If true (and again, I hope it is not), it would confirm my worst fears about Clinton. This is nightmare material.
It will cost her votes, too.
If Hillary Clinton actively seeks, or publicly accepts, the endorsement of Henry Kissinger, I will vote for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld on November 8. (Jill Stein, you might’ve been a contender, but going off to Red Square to talk about Vladimir Putin and human rights? Being an honored guest of a Russian propaganda channel? I don’t think so.) Kissinger is a bridge too far. He is responsible for more unnecessary deaths than any official of a putative Western democracy since the days when Lord John Russell was starving the Irish, if not the days when President Andy Jackson was inaugurating the genocide of the Cherokee. He should be coughing his life away as an inmate at The Hague, not whispering in the ears of a putatively progressive Democratic presidential candidate. I can tolerate (somewhat) the notion of her reaching out to the rest of the wax museum there, but Kissinger is a monster too far. He is my line in the sand. I can choose who I endorse to lead my country, a blessing that Henry Kissinger worked his whole career to deny to too many people.
I agree with Pierce that Kissinger is an abominable monster who ought to be in prison, and he’s one of the small number of people whose inevitable death will provoke cheers from me. If Clinton were to be even more chummy with Kissinger than she already is, I’ll be in line for “Anyone But Hillary” — in four years. But not this election. She has my vote locked up, which is not a good situation to be in, but I’ll definitely vote for the lesser of two evils.
This is something else to damn Trump for. He is so appallingly awful that the Democratic candidate is free to wander off into unthinkably ugly territory with few consequences.
Not only would I prefer just about anyone else to anyone who strokes Kissinger, but I’d also like to see the return of a viable, rational Republican party.
Did you know that classes start up for me in two weeks? I am determined to be better organized this year, so I’ve spent my day assembling my syllabus for one course…and it’s almost done. I’ll be working on the second course after that. I may actually have everything all laid out and ready to go a whole week before I have to teach, which would be quasi-miraculous.
So this Fall I’m teaching cell biology again (I think that one is locked into my schedule every year from now until I die), and also a course in science writing called Biological Communication. I expect y’all to tell me what you’re teaching, if you are, in this coming year.
We’re a little odd at UMM in that we start our school year at the end of August, and most of my fellow teachers probably have until sometime in September to get your act together. Are you better organized than I am? You are allowed to gloat.
Because if you are, you might not want to watch this video of Bryan Fry collecting sea snakes. There’s one scene where he’s got a fist full of multiple venomous snakes all writhing about that might give you the heebie-jeebies.
