Remember how a few years back, Bush wanted to take the government’s responsibility to care for its citizens and offload it onto religions? I remember seeing that and thinking, “Hmm, more money for charities, that’s nice.” Then I thought, “Wait a minute, this is Bush we’re talking about — what’s he playing at?” Then I realised that he was a) funneling Federal money to religions, and b) preparing for a phase-out of welfare. Bush called this a ‘faith-based’ approach.

Well, it’s happening here, and it’s being worked by Liberal Minister for Health and Ageing Tony Abbott.

He’s vocal in his opposition to abortion, which is fine. Too bad he’s not some guy in a bar, and is instead the federal health minister, and was in a position to decide whether Australian women got to have RU-486 or not. Cooler heads prevailed, and the Senate removed Abbott’s veto powers.

The Liberal government was down, but not out. Having lost that battle, PM John Howard is now advocating ‘faith-based’ counseling services using church organisations.

That isn’t so strange. Lots of counseling services are religiously-affiliated (e.g. Anglicare), and they do some good work. My concern is that doctors will be gagged when giving professional advice.

DOCTORS with links to abortion clinics will be banned from providing taxpayer-funded counselling to pregnant women, under the Government’s $51 million plan to cut the abortion rate.

But Prime Minister John Howard hasn’t ruled out allowing church-affiliated groups to offer counselling to women with an unplanned pregnancy, insisting the advice will be “non-directive”.

But won’t the faith-based services be hesitant to recommend abortion?

Mr Howard said the counselling helpline would not be set up to provide a specific viewpoint on pregnancy or terminations. “The referral process will not be cooked in favour of a particular attitude,” he said.

I don’t see how you could not have any bias there. I’d steer people away from abortion if I were on the phones, and I believed that abortion were a moral evil (instead of what I actually think, which is that abortion is a horrible thing that is sometimes necessary, and ought to be safe and legal for women who need it).

And so Australia shuffles bit by bit toward ‘faith-based’ solutions. I’m for religions acting in a helping capacity — it’s one thing they do really well. But in this case, religion is being used by government to accomplish its ends, and women are the losers.

New CBS poll has Bush at 34% (and 29% on personal favourability).

That’s a record, folks.

And as Josh Marshall pointed out,

once you get down below, say, 40% you’ve really, really gotta earn every new lost point on the way down.

But I think the real story is how Bush is playing in Utah, where Bush support is the highest. Survey USA has him at 58%. This seems pretty high, but it’s rare for Bush to drop below 60 in the Beehive State.

That dispassionate number conceals agonies of cognitive dissonance among the Republican faithful. Latter-day Saints are conditioned to obey authority, and the conflict between obedience and disgust must be harrowing for some Utah Republicans. Oh, sure, there are plenty of ‘kick Al-Qaeda’s butt’ Bush worshippers, but among them are conservatives in the classic mold. Fiscal responsibility, limited government, avoid foreign entanglements. I’ve had many conversations with these folks, and while I disagreed with their approach, I respected some of these core values. That was in 1992, before the irrational Clinton-hatred and the takeover of the Republican Party by neo-conservative radicals, Bush among them.

I don’t mean this to be exculpatory; the Republicans chose to go after the mouth-breathing religious conservative vote, and in many ways Bush is nothing more than the logical extension of their policies and tactics. The devil take them all! But this does give great pain to people who remember what conservatism used to be about.

Never mind. It seems we’re due for a contraction, as conservatives smell the wind and turn on Bush and Co in order to gain some distance for the midterms. There’s going to be a lot of blood on the floor.

BMW had a spot of bother when they unveiled their spoken-language guidance system.

Unfortunately, a large number of drivers had a strong negative reaction to this technological marvel and demanded a product recall. The problem? The navigation system had a female voice. German drivers felt uncomfortable with, and untrusting of, a “female” giving directions! BMW acquiesced and switched to a “male” synthetic voice.

People react to computers as if they were people. I remember a study where people were asked to test a computer, and then evaluate the computer’s performance. One group was asked to click in the evaluation form on the same computer they tested, while another was asked to use a different computer for the evaluation. And people in the first group gave higher scores! Perhaps they didn’t want to insult the computer to its face.

There’s a principle here. We live in a world of speaking people. People respond to us when we talk to them. It’s natural. But our gift for interpretation sometimes makes us use it where it doesn’t apply — as with non-humans. You talk to the dog, and he looks at you so earnestly that it’s hard to believe he didn’t understand a word. You talk to empty space, and it’s hard to believe that the empty space isn’t giving you some kind of response. Easy to interpret any unusual circumstance as an answer. Especially when you’re exercising faith.

I happened upon this page about superstition on the official Watchtower web site.

Much of African culture is based on superstition. Movies, radio shows, and literature produced in Africa often highlight superstition and mystical subjects, such as magic, ancestor worship, and fetishes.

a) other places in the world may be just as superstitious — if religion is a kind of respectable superstition, then Europe and the USA are every bit as superstitious as anywhere in Africa and

b) the Watchtower folks are engaging in more than a few superstitions of their own, including belief in the Invisible Sky Father, life after death, and of course, de Debbil.

Oh, but they’ve got evidence.

Despite evidence to the contrary, some people today tend to deny the existence of Satan or evil spirits.

Wait — what was the evidence? Don’t leave me hanging! I’d really love to see some good evidence for the existence of Satan that couldn’t be explained by non-supernatural means. Exorcisms? Ouija boards? Reality TV? Rational thought? The fact that not everyone’s a Jehovah’s Witness? Be specific!

I have to say though, there’s a lot on the page to like.

Superstitions vary immensely throughout the world, and their propagation depends on local folklore, legends, and circumstances. But the common denominator is the belief that someone, or something, from the invisible spirit world needs to be appeased.

[Snipping some examples of this.]

Examples like these show that although some superstitions may seem quaint and inoffensive, others can be dangerous — even deadly. With a sinister interpretation, a harmless event can be transformed into a dangerous affair.

Yes, in reality, superstition is a belief, a form of religion.

Well, I couldn’t agree more with that part. It’s just funny when a religion tries to go all skeptical on another religion’s ass (if you will). By hacking away at belief, they undermine their own. They just don’t see it that way because they refuse to turn the machete of Reason onto themselves.

To clarify: I’m aware that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are actively anti-racist, for the which I give them props. I’m sure they’re targeting Africa because the writer perceived some strange superstitions there, which is true. But it’s really not any more bizarre than those of other belief systems. It’s a case where our own superstitions seem normal. My superstitious belief system is a religion, yours is a sect, theirs is a cult.

My housemate is sick. He’s had a sore throat and flu for days, but man of might that I am, I feel fine.

“I wonder why I’m not getting it,” I wonder aloud.

“I would think that’s a good thing,” he says.

“Maybe I shouldn’t say anything,” says I.

Without thinking, I’d fallen into the old taboo of not talking about things that you don’t want to happen. Because talking about it might make it happen, you know. There are lots of superstitions against naming bad things. We say, “I won’t talk about the deal because I don’t want to ‘jinx’ it.” Many cultures have superstitions that prohibit talking about the devil, calling him ‘that one’ or something similar. New agers try to think positively in the belief that the ‘energy’ you send out comes back. (Creating your own reality’s a real bitch when you’re just learning, isn’t it?)

I think what’s behind this is salience. When people cast about for explanations to what’s happening in the world, they will naturally light on phenomena that are perceptually salient. That’s what’s behind the lunar fallacy. People incorrectly think that insanity, violence, and childbirth are more common during the full moon — never when the moon is three-quarters and a half full — because the full moon is more perceptually salient.

So is talking about something. And so the act of talking about an undesired event is wrongly blamed for making the thing happen. If I did get sick today, it’d be tempting to think: Hmm, I talked about it; that must have caused it. But I’d be ignoring the thousands of things I talk about all day that don’t happen.

Federal Treasurer (and likely Howard successor) Peter Costello gave a speech last night wherein he opined that Australian dual citizens should be stripped — stripped! — of their Aussie citizenship if they don’t observe Australian Values™.

In his strongest comments on the issue yet, he said anyone refusing to acknowledge the rule of law “stabs at the heart of the Australian compact“.

“Those who are outside this compact threaten the rights and liberties of others,” Mr Costello said. “They should be refused citizenship if they apply for it. Where they have it they should be stripped of it if they are dual citizens and have some other country that recognises them as citizens.“

Mr Costello said the citizenship pledge should be “a big flashing warning sign” to Muslims wanting to live under sharia law.

“Before entering a mosque visitors are asked to take off their shoes,” Mr Costello said. “This is a sign of respect. If you have a strong objection to walking in your socks don’t enter the mosque. Before becoming an Australian you will be asked to subscribe to certain values. If you have strong objection to those values don’t come to Australia.“

So as an Australian dual citizen, I have been duly warned (or is that dually warned?). I wonder if the full list of Australian Values™ can be found on the net somewhere. Wouldn’t want to run afoul of the Howard government. And was I told about them when I got citizenship? Trust me to forget.

Of course, with the Danish cartoon flap and the Cronulla riots, I can see why people would be a bit edgy over residents whose allegiance to Aussie Aussie Aussie could be any less than full-throated. You don’t want people (especially those people) to start rioting or killing.

But those things are already against the law. Why do we need to appeal to values at all? Why not just say “Those who break the law will be punished”? It’s not enough to obey the laws, I have to sign on to certain values as well?

Notice how (in a cute touch) Costello’s brother conflates the two.

World Vision chief executive Tim Costello praised his brother for raising the debate about multiculturalism. “I think there should be a debate because it’s complex,” he said. “Should people from countries who practise female genital mutilation or bigamy and say it’s part of their cultural or religious beliefs [to] be allowed to do so here? I would say no, they have consented to our laws by coming here. I think Peter is right in that fact.”

Right; nobody’s arguing that laws shouldn’t be obeyed. But laws are not values. Why appeal to them?

Ah, but ‘values’ is one of those ‘dog whistle’ words, and has been ever since about June 1992, when Bush the Elder started using it to satisfy the Folks Back Home. Then as now, it means “There are people not like us, and they’re the Bad People.” What else can we call them, if they don’t share Our Values? It means you have No Values, and that makes you bad. And you can’t question the Values because nobody can articulate what they are. Values are a poorly-defined extra layer that sits on top of law, which Those People are nonetheless expected to observe. It’s a wedge word.

While I’m on the topic of words, ‘Australian compact’ is a stupid phrase. Makes me think of makeup. Note to Costello: suggest ‘Australian deal’. Resonates with the punters. Or go back to ‘Australian Way of Life’.

Values™ are going to come up a lot in the discourse for quite a while. When you hear these code words, ask yourself: Why isn’t law enough? What primal urge are they appealing to? Who is being split from whom? Whose dog is being whistled?