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Category: politics (page 7 of 19)

Nice call, committee.

9 October 2009 / / 1 Comment

I love the sound of wingnut heads exploding in the morning.

Mr O wins the Nobel.

The crazies will carp, and the spittle will fleck. The Liberal Peace Prize, more like. They gave one to Yassir Arafat, too! And Woodrow Wilson! With all that League of Nations stuff, you just know he was trying to undermine American sovereignty! I can hear them now.

If Obama can deal with the likes of them with his customary poise and equanimity, he’s earned the Nobel Peace Prize in my book. Rebooting American foreign policy (somewhat) and revitalising the Middle East peace process is a bonus.

Maybe he’s just a spelling reform advocate.

8 September 2009 / / 5 Comments

Senator Steve Fielding’s fiscal gaffe is in the news.

Gaffe-prone Family First Senator Steve Fielding has made another blunder while trying to clarify his economic position.

Senator Fielding, who previously called a double dissolution election, “double disillusionment”, has frequently spoken about “physical policy” instead of “fiscal policy”.

When questioned about the mispronunciation this morning, he only managed to jam his foot further into his mouth.

“I’ll make it quite clear: fiscal, F-I-S-K-A-L,” he spelt.

The journalist repeated the misspelling, prompting Fielding to correct himself.

“F-I-S-C-A-L. Yeah, fiscal.”

I’m not here to pile on. I don’t think it’s fair to label someone as thick just because they can’t spell. Spelling is a superpower that was thrust upon me at birth, and I don’t know how someone could go about acquiring it.

What I would be more embarrassed about is being a Family First senator. And saying things like divorced people are harming the planet, a piece of claptrap which I covered a couple of years ago. I would also be embarrassed to be a citizen in an electorate that had a Family First MP.

I hope he really does have a genuine learning disability, as he says he does. Using the term ‘learning disability’ as a cover for more general ‘not knowing how to spell words and stuff’ would be really slimy.

How to persuade? And who?

16 August 2009 / / 1 Comment

I ran across two similar articles the other day. One’s about religion, one’s about politics, and both are taking me to task.

Must science declare a holy war on religion?

The so-called New Atheists are attacking the mantra of science and faith being compatible. Others in the science community question the value of confrontation.

Ooo, confrontation. Sounds confronting. It seems that atheist scientists are being mean, publishing books, and loudly declaring that God probably doesn’t exist. Doing science, in other words.

And then there’s this article:

Are liberals seceding from sanity?

The left is crazy to insult white Southerners as a group

which takes liberals to task for South-bashing, and the only example offered is Kevin Drum. But never mind. The article warns us:

They are erring neighbors to be won over, not cretins to be mocked.

At which point I ask: Is it too much to ask for both?

Let’s examine the question that ties these two articles together: how do we act toward people who disagree with us? And there are at least two possible answers:

  1. Be nice, keep quiet, persuade them with reason, and sooner or later they’ll come around if we don’t hurt their feelings and (all together now) alienate them.
  2. Be loud and proud, combat the ridiculous with ridicule, the error with truth, and don’t worry overmuch about stepping on toes.

Now let’s see: where have I heard this conflict before? Ah, yes. It was Amy Sullivan, who warned us that Democrats needed people of faith to win elections. She couldn’t have known how badly that would work for Republicans, who herded the faithful into their tent, only to find that they couldn’t get rid of them. Now the delusional folk are wanting to run the whole show, with predictably disastrous consequences.

So let’s address the religion article first. And just for perspective: these articles ran on the same day as these news stories:

Dozens of rabbis fly over Israel praying to defeat swine flu

The aim of the flight was to stop the pandemic so people will stop dying from it,” Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri was quoted as saying in the mass-circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

“We are certain that, thanks to the prayer, the danger is already behind us,” added Batzri.

Mayoral Candidate Mary Falling Wants Creationism Exhibit

TULSA, OK — A mayoral candidate has resurrected a controversy over Creationism at the Tulsa Zoo.

A push to exhibit the Christian story of creation at the Tulsa Zoo failed four years ago. Republican candidate for Tulsa mayor, Anna Falling, is bringing the issue front and center.

It’s the same exhibit and the same arguments, but now it is given from the bully pulpit of a candidate running for mayor.

“Some may ask why this issue during a Mayoral campaign? And I say why not?” said candidate Anna Falling.

For Anna Falling, the road to city hall runs through the Tulsa Zoo. She’s made her Christianity central to her platform and now the exhibit depicting the Christian story of Creationism is her first campaign promise.

“Today we are announcing that God will be glorified in this city. He shall not be shunned. Upon our election, we hereby commit to honoring Him in all ways that He has been dishonored,” said Anna Falling.

These people live in the same century as we do. They have access to all the same knowledge that we do. The Enlightenment was 400 years ago. Sweet reason has had all that time to do its work. The non-confrontational approach has failed. They’re still here, dumber than ever, and trying to take over the world that science has created. By not confronting them, by not speaking out, we will let them win.

On the other hand, by speaking out, by coming out and being heard, by being loud and obnoxious and, yes, confrontational, we have seen our numbers grow. More people now identify as non-religious than at any time in recent history.

If my reading is representative, most of these gains are coming from people who haven’t been religious for a long time, but were reluctant to call themselves atheists or agnostics. For these people, all the noise about religion has forced the issue, and pushed them to re-examine their beliefs. It may have pushed some other people the other way, this is true, but those people probably weren’t convincible anyway. The only people I see complaining about noisy atheists are Fundamentalist Christians — and why wouldn’t they.

See, when you’re in a religion, it’s like you’re in a bubble. A big cushy bubble where it’s nice and soft, and everyone reaffirms your beliefs. And it feels goood. Now someone comes and gives your bubble a push. You have two choices. If you’re a confirmed believer, you retreat further into the bubble. That makes the noise stop. Drat those noisy people! Why must they challenge you? It certainly didn’t make you change, but then what were the odds of that happening? On the other hand, if you’re someone who makes reality your guide, that noise (plus the cognitive dissonance you already have floating around in there) may be just the thing that forces you to see how the facts conflict with what’s going on in your bubble. And when that gets loud enough, you might decide to burst your bubble and change your thinking.

But that only works when it’s obvious that there’s a disconnect between your bubble and the real world. So I’d say that when you have the facts on your side, your cause can only benefit from pushing the facts.

Now what about the South-bashing? This is trickier because while the US South has a definite inclination toward the most dangerous kind of lunacy, I’ve read comments from loads of people in the South who are progressive, and who feel annoyed and embarrassed by the attitudes of their neighbours. So I don’t engage in South-bashing. I’m not a big fan of stereotyping. Not very accurate. But I’ll gladly take on the lunacy. People who are convincible aren’t too crazy about the crazy anyway.

And this is what I think both authors miss: people are different. That is, some people are crazy, and some people are convincible, and they are not the same people.

You can take on the crazy with mockery and ridicule. They won’t like it. But the convincible will notice that you’re making sense. They’ll thank you for it. And all you have to do is tell the truth and tell it loud.

Astroweed lobbying

15 August 2009 / / 2 Comments

When political action committees pay to create the semblance of a public groundswell, it’s called ‘astroturfing‘. It looks like a grassroots movement, but it’s fake.

To extend the metaphor, here’s a neologism that surely deserves a place in the political lexicon: astroweeds. It comes to us courtesy of Salon’s Alex Koppelman.

[W]hat we are seeing falls somewhere between, and essentially combines the worst part of both grass-roots activism and astroturfing — that is, it pairs the slick coordination of elites coupled with the raw, unfiltered advocacy of the masses. What happens when a set of elites coordinate, fund and foment public expression, but encourage just about anyone — whether informed or not, whether skilled communicators or not, whether dedicated to the particular issue under discussion or merely dedicated to resistance for “Waterloo”-style resistance’s sake — and send them into the public arena to express their opinions? We get ugly signs, incoherent questions and blood-curdling screams about the coming end of America as we know it.

Astroweed lobbying has been a terrible distraction in the American discussion on health care. Insane people are getting townhall airtime — and in some cases, subsequent TV appearances — despite being poorly informed, unfocused, and incoherent.

It’s almost enough to drive you to Whorfianism; maybe we do need more words to describe right-wing reality distortion, just by virtue of its prevalence.

Rudd won’t budge on gay marriage

29 July 2009 / / 19 Comments

Australia has a reputation for being irreverant, secular, and liberal. At times like these I’m not sure it’s deserved.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will move against a push at this week’s Labor Party conference to allow same-sex marriages.

The Labor Party’s Tasmanian state conference has called for the Federal Government to amend the Marriage Act to allow same-sex couples to marry.

It will be an issue at this week’s National Labor Conference.

Mr Rudd says he will not change the policy he took to the last election.

“We went to the last election being very clear-cut about our position on marriage under the Marriage Act being between a man and a woman,” he said.

Now I’ve voted for two people who are against gay marriage, but I have to say, it’s getting tiresome. I think Mr Obama and Mr Rudd are smart leaders who are good at most things, but I find their view on this issue really disappointing.

I suspect that this is due in part to the openly religious leanings of these men. Being religious has a way of making cool people occasionally act in jerky ways (e.g. Rich Raddon). Otherwise, I just can’t see why Rudd would have to take this stand in a country where polls show the issue at 60 percent acceptance.

I’d like to see this change, and soon.

Mormons the most Republican religious group

27 July 2009 / / 1 Comment

In a piece of news that surprised precisely no one, the Pew Report has revealed that Mormons are the most conservative religious group in America.

More Mormons (60 percent) identify themselves as conservatives than any other religious group; they also lead every other group in GOP party identification (at 65 percent)–much higher than the general population in both categories.

Actually, I was a bit surprised. Only 65 percent Republican? Back in my Utah days, it felt like 95 percent. I’ll bet the Republican numbers are low because there’s a further 25 percent comprised of John-Birch-birther-Ron-Paul Independents who think the Republican party isn’t Constitutional enough.

Out of the remaining 10 percent, subtract the usual 8 percent Unaffiliated/Don’t Know, and you’ll have 2 percent left. That’s the elusive Liberal Mormon.

You’ll find more than a few liberal Mormons behind this effort to reconcile LDS Church leadership with gay people. As of today, it has — wow — all of 1,360 signatories. (For comparison, this is an order of magnitude less than this petition to consider Michael Jackson for a Nobel Peace Prize.)

We the undersigned, in the spirit of love and peace, earnestly seek to create a climate for reconciliation between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and gays and lesbians who have been affected by the policies, practices and politics of the Church. We recognize that issues surrounding sexuality and gender orientation are complex; that understanding of these matters has evolved, especially over the past several decades, and are continuing to evolve as scientists, therapists, theologians and others continue to explore and ponder their meaning and significance; We believe that people of good will may have differing views about homosexuality, while maintaining amicable relationships.

Lovely sentiments, a noble goal, and a complete waste of time. Why would church leadership want to reconcile with gay people? Their fiercely conservative membership is convinced they speak for god, and when god’s on your side, negotiation is impossible. Enter a dialogue with gay people, seriously? Those people want to destroy society. Oh, sure, the church will have to walk back all that homophobia someday, but that’ll be a long time from now, and Mormons will claim it was never official church policy anyway.

You have to love Mormon liberals, but you have to feel sad for them. True, they haven’t completely off-loaded their conscience onto church leadership. But that only means that their post-Dark-Ages political leanings puts them at odds with other Mormons, including church leaders, who wonder why they’re not ‘following the prophet’. So they have an uneasy relationship with a church that distrusts them for their intellectual independence.

I want to see a better relationship between the LDS Church and gay people too, but it’s not going to happen by church members politely petitioning for it. It will happen when Mormons with a conscience refuse to support the church financially or numerically with their membership.

People discover things, religions don’t.

5 June 2009 / / 4 Comments

I’m going through President Obama’s Cairo speech. I’m very encouraged by his commitment to undo the misdeeds of the past administration.

As an atheist, though, I’d be remiss if I didn’t correct one point that the president brought up about Islam.

As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.

This focus is misguided. Islam did not give the world algebra, the compass, printing, the ballpoint pen with erasable ink, or anything like them. Individuals can and do discover and invent such things; religions do not. Religions qua religions are not capable of advancing human knowledge because they are non-empirical belief systems. They get their data not from the physical world, but from supposed revelations. As such, they are no more likely to be right than random chance.

Religions may on occasion offer interesting hypotheses about the world or human behaviour, which someone might test. But then that’s science, not religion.

Religions have acted as a repressive force on human progress more often than a promoting force. The library at Alexandria was a repository of the great learning amassed up to that time. Its destruction over centuries is one of the great crimes against humanity. The responsible parties are the ravages of time, public indifference, conquering kings, and people acting under the influence of religion.

As Christians gained dominance in the region, they felt uncomfortable with pagan temples full of pagan documents. In 391 AD, Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria, urged a mob to destroy the temple at Serapis, presumably at the same time destroying whatever books were left in the daughter library. This was hailed as a great victory of the Christians over the pagans.

The final fire was in 645 AD, when the Moslem caliph Omar conquered Egypt. The story is that Omar was asked what to do about the books in the library, and gave the reply: “If the books agree with the Koran, they are not necessary. If they disagree, they are not desired. Therefore, destroy them.” According to tradition, the scrolls were used as fuel to provide hot water for the soldiers’ baths for six months.

The story may be bunk, but the sentiments are real. In the days of Galileo, churches tried to suppress knowledge. It didn’t work. Now they attempt to wall off their theology from scientific scrutiny (perhaps by saying that their god is ‘outside of science’), or they offer up ersatz science with fake facts to misinform.

I see human progress as the triumph of empiricism and reason over superstition. The credit belongs to the people who invented and discovered, not to the religions that for too long have stood in the way.

Theologian and linguist of the week

6 May 2009 / / 7 Comments

I’ve done my best to ignore Not-Joe the Not-Plumber all these months because I’m hoping he’ll go away. Unfortunately, he keeps poking his head into the public discourse, and I’m going to comment this time because ignoring dangerous things can get you hurt somewhere along the line.

Joe’s used to speaking outside his expertise — he’s opined about politics and economics, badly — but now in his recent interview with Christianity Today, he takes a hatchet to gay people, and along the way, he makes a truly strange argument about language.

Interviewer: In the last month, same-sex marriage has become legal in Iowa and Vermont. What do you think about same-sex marriage at a state level?

Joe: At a state level, it’s up to them. I don’t want it to be a federal thing. I personally still think it’s wrong. People don’t understand the dictionary—it’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do—what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.

If I understand his argument, he’s saying that being queer is “strange and unusual”…because the dictionary says so. And there’s only one dictionary. You know — the dictionary! That one.

People have all kinds of attitudes about language, but it takes an especially obtuse individual to insist that a dictionary definition is the true meaning of a word. Words have different senses, as with ‘queer’. It’s hard to make the argument that the dictionary definition for one sense of a word should determine the meaning of a completely different sense. It’s like going to the bank for some cash and being surprised not to find a river there because ‘the dictionary’ says that a bank is ‘sloping land by a river’.

There’s a lot more to the article: his “state’s rights” trope that was used to justify racism in the South. And his admission that he’s ‘had some friends’ who are gay. (Why do they always say that?) But of course he won’t let his friends near the kids. Feel the Christian love.

Teabagging in the corpus

22 April 2009 / / 3 Comments

Teabag Wednesday in the USA really only had two good outcomes: first, we got to mock libertarian/republican rightwads for their cluelessness on sexual terminology, and two, they got to add a new item to their vocabulary, if not to their repertoire.

As a linguist, I tend to be pretty hip with the lingo, taking into account how hard it is to be hip over 40 when we’re talking about sexual acts no one actually does. (Be honest.) But Dan Savage’s latest article has thrown me into a spin — he asserts (and he should know) that teabagging is performed by the one with the teabags. That is, a male teabags a female and not the reverse, as I had always assumed.

To teabag someone, you need a scrotum with which to teabag them: The teabagger dips sack; a teabaggee receives dipped sack. It’s a little confusing, I realize, in that it’s the opposite of a blowjob: The person with a dick in his or her mouth is giving the blowjob; the person being sucked is receiving the blowjob. But language is funny that way.

I tend to side with Mr Savage, not only because of his expertise on all matters sexual, but also for his influence in bending language to his will. He did, after all, introduce us to ‘santorum‘, and while it hasn’t lasted, I give him props for getting it as far as he has. What I mean is that if teabagging meant what I thought it did before he wrote his column, it has a good chance of meaning what he thinks it does by right about now.

I can’t be the only one to have had this misapprehension, if my reading of ‘Overheard in New York‘ is representative.

Husband: Then I can teabag you.
Wife: Wait. They go in my mouth. Wouldn’t I be teabagging you?
Husband: My teabags, my act of teabagging.
Wife: That doesn’t sound right.
Husband: Whatever. Teabagging will occur.

So, to the Corpus. I took a somewhat selective view of the top Google hits for the term “I was teabagging” (minus ‘halo’ — don’t ask).

This page has it both ways:

[A commenter]”So the other night I was teabagging the hell out of this sexy ass bitch…”

[Another commenter] “I love teabagging- well, at least in the sense that I always understood it: putting a man’s balls in your mouth while giving head.”

This page has a bit of both as well:

“Because you kept telling me how much you liked my big balls when I was teabagging you, and I’d hate to think that you’d lie to me at such an intimate moment.”

“I’d just like to point out that, in the phrase, “I was teabagging you,” the teabagger is not the one dipping the bag, but the one receiving it.”

The Official Ninja Forum is fairly unambiguous:

Long story short, while I was teabagging Ashley my male member slithered out of the apartment…

A Wonkette commenter agrees with Savage:

“Personally I wouldn’t want to teabag any of those people. If they’ve come from the CPAC conference, then who knows where their faces have been.”

A little more research turned up this interview from director John Waters, who popularised the term in his film ‘Pecker’.

“Teabagging” is by my definition the act of dragging your testicles across your partner’s forehead. In the UK it is dipping your testicles in your partner’s mouth.

Regional variation, but both definitions put the action onto the one with the teabags.

And can we really argue with Urban Dictionary? Teabagging as an action-with-nuts is far and away the most upvoted.

That does it. I’m convinced. Now to contemplate the physical improbabilities of the act, barring cold water. YMMV.

‘Daniel’ font sighting: Scott Murphy for Congress campaign

12 February 2009 / / Comments Off on ‘Daniel’ font sighting: Scott Murphy for Congress campaign

Scott Murphy is running for Congress in District 20 in the great state of New York. Not only is he a Democrat, and therefore one of the good guys, his campaign clearly has very discriminating taste.

Download the Daniel font for free from dafont.com.

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