Macrofluff

Ron Paul and Newt Drop Out, Endorse Romney

2012-01-29T13:10:00.000-08:00

Both Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich have been heard recently complaining about all the "establishment money" outspending them, and to a liberal like me, this sounds like an argument for campaign finance reform. But coming from these two gentlemen, it qualifies as an endorsement of Mitt Romney. Let me explain.

Consider Ron Paul's position on campaign finance reform. Whether in the form of public financing of campaigns or other rules governing the finance of campaigns, his position is that it's UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

To those who don't know conservativespeak, "unconstitutional" does not simply mean disallowed under the constitution as currently applied or not legally valid without an amendment to the constitution. That's the liberal definition of unconstitutional. In fact -- you may find this shocking -- in conservativespeak it does not even mean counter-to or in violation of the correctly interpreted currently active text of the Constitution! In conservativespeak, you see, the word "unconstitutional" means "fundamentally evil and wrong despite the appearance of being morally right." For example, protecting people from financial fraud -- it seems like a morally right thing to do, but financial fraud is also highly profitable -- thus, such a regulation would be termed "unconstitutional". See how it works? In crazytown, the world is at a crucial juncture demanding radical change. Without it we are all DOOMED. And also, it's a moral imperative that Mitt Romney be able to leverage all that "establishment money" to grab the reins of power and keep us on that path to doom.

Welcome to crazytown.

But Newt Gingrich's position is a little more subtle. Like Paul, he hails from crazytown, but he also keeps a house [and a mistress] in DC. For Newt, it's not just a matter of constitutionality -- unlimited political spending is a moral good in and of itself! Perhaps because living in DC opens ones eyes to the importance of special interest money in helping leaders to sort policy priorities. And I'm not referring to the big bucks he made lobbying on behalf of Freddie Mac in the years leading up to the financial crisis he would then blame on Freddie Mac's cozy position in the halls of power. I'm referring to his reaction to the Citizen's United case. In an interview the day of that decision, Newt had this to say:

Well, I'm delighted. And I think I would say that the real campaign finance reform under our Constitution would be to allow anyone to give unlimited amounts of after-tax money.... I'm saying that it allows you to have a middle-class candidate go out and find allies and supporters who are able to help them match the rich....

Well, if that's your position, Mr. Gingrich, then the failure of your Super PAC to raise enough money to match Mitt Romney's Super PAC is a triumph for our system of government! It sounds to me like an endorsement of Mitt Romney.

Not Even Newt Can Count the Angels on the Head of a Pin

2011-12-02T16:26:00.000-08:00

A recent interview response from Newt Gingrich has the Catholics in a tizzy. Apparently they are upset that he wouldn't take a stand on whether a fertilized egg that had not yet been implanted in the uterine wall was a human life. Of course it is, so the nuts win on that point, but they're both missing the forest for the trees.

The correct answer from science is that life is a continuous process going back millions of years without interruption. There is no specific moment when the life of a single organism begins [or species, for that matter]. Or, as I like to say, life begins long before conception. But the real question I think the religious folks are trying to ask is either: (1) when does the SOUL implant into the organism or perhaps (2) when does the life of value equal to that of an human child begin [obviously not before fertilization, and setting aside the usual liberal quip that conservatives value fetuses more than children].

The more you know, the harder the question gets for religious folks. For example, what if there is a fertilized egg, but shortly after it starts to divide into a multicellular organism, some developmental flaw occurs that guarantees it will never be able to develop anything even resembling a brain. The pregnancy would fail naturally very soon after that, but it raises a question to someone who claims the fertilized egg had a soul or equal value to that of a human, since the event that made it impossible for it to develop into something more meaningful than a blob of tissue happened after fertilization.

But if you reject the religion or the religious proscriptions, the question itself pretty much disappears. Let's hope Newt disappears, too.

Regarding the Commission Approved Draft Legislative and Congressional Maps

2011-10-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

Click to see draft maps

If you look at recent statewide races, you see that Republicans have a 10 percentage point advantage, about 55% to 45%. That said, statewide races are close when the Democrat is highly qualified and has a clean record, and when their Republican challenger has a history of corruption or incompetence. Redistricting will have no effect on this,but it gives a sense of the population of Arizona.

The same is not true in many congressional and legislative districts. We can easily find examples of blatantly incompetent and corrupt representatives elected in safe districts due to the dynamics of a primary election with too many or too few competitors. In safe districts, we find incumbents who are guaranteed reelection in all but the most extreme cases. Are vote splitting primaries with too many candidates vying for a safe party seat followed by term limits really the way we want to select our representatives?

Competitive districts provide a safeguard against this.Competitive districts are not an advantage for Democrats. They aren't even an advantage for so-called moderates and centrists. They're an advantage for sane people.

So is that what the draft maps provide? Not really. The drafts offer only a handful of competitive legislative districts. Less than half of the congressional districts are competitive.

And how are the uncompetitive districts divided? In a state that polls at 55% Republican, of legislative districts with a 15 point spread or more, 65% percent are safe Republican seats. In a state that polls at 55%Republican, of congressional districts with a 15 point spread, 67% are safe Republican seats.

If you make the reasonable assumption that Republicans would still take competitive seats half the time, that still leaves our congressional delegation and legislatures over 60% Republican. For those of you who are bad at math, that's higher than 55%. That gives Republicans a louder voice that they would get under a truly representative system of government

They already have that.

So why are Republicans so upset with this map?

They've controlled the state legislature for decades. Do these draft maps threaten that control? No. But if you think about, it makes sense. There is no such thing as enough for them. They follow an ideology that elevates self interest and greed above all other human values, even beyond the natural balance of these forces in a sane and healthy human being. They will never have enough. There is no way to appease them.

Drinking Liberally @ Lux Central, Thursday

2011-10-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

What: Drinking Liberally
When: Thursday, 6:30 - 11pm
Where: Lux Central, 4402 North Central Avenue in Phoenix (at the Campbell light rail station)
Where, specifically: probably a semi-hidden room in the back, not too hard to find though

It's time to sit down for a serious, soul searching, talk. Perhaps over drinks.

The consensus in the mainstream media is that the #OccupyWallStreet protests are lacking a clear message and have no policy solutions.

Well then, maybe they should vote Republican -- nobody has a less clear message than them. After all, the GOP is the party of tax cuts while their leading presidential candidate wants to raise taxes on 85% of us and the Republicans who run our solidly red state have managed to do so already. They believe in small government, but they want to regulate women's health and sexual orientation. They are the pro-life party that wants to expand the use of the death penalty and let the uninsured working poor die in the street from easily treatable medical conditions. They are proud of their fiscal restraint, yet they see nothing wrong with racking up another trillion dollars of debt to fight a war under false pretenses and another trillion in giveaways to their wealthy cronies which they hope topay for later by cutting expenses in programs that already pay for themselves.

On second thought, not so much. By comparison, I would say the #Occupiers have a pretty clear message. Corporate power is the problem. To be fair, the GOP has a clear message, too: government is the problem. And if you don't believe it, just watch them govern and they'll prove it to you. But don't try it sober. To understand the GOP style of governing, you need to be drunk or otherwise brain damaged. I prefer to drink or to simply not understand.

So join us at Lux this Thursday evening, and we can do it together. (We're still deciding where to settle this bi-weekly event, but this looks like a really good option.)

Peace,

Oran

Another Forgotten Debate

2011-09-30T17:54:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard a religious person tell you that scienceand religion both require faith? That it takes just as much faith for you to believein evolution, or even empiricism (!), as it takes for them to believe a mythwritten by stone age goat herders? Well, here's how it went down this time:

It started with a parable I wrote in response to a flawed logical refutation of empiricism:

Imagine someone making a claim that there is a buried jar of black jellybeans and antique Ford gear shift knobs of a very specific configuration and location. It's a reasonable claim for the person who buried it to make, but when you casually ask about it, they explain that they believe it on faith and they have no empirical reason whatsoever for believing it's there.

You would find the claim absurd, but then imagine them laughing back at you! How could you possibly know it's not there?

To this, the creationist responded with the usual argument that it takes just as much faith to believe in empiricism as it takes to believe in his religion. It was a very long-winded version, but that's what it really boiled down to. Here was my reply:

I don't see it as faith. I've given lots of ideas what I consider to be a fairtry. Some I accept, some I disbelieve, some I reject as nonsense, andsome I consider still up in the air. For many religions, though, they claimthat what I consider to be a "fair try" unacceptable. I will onlydrink your Kool-Aid if you first convince me that you are right. They say a"fair try" means fully believing it first. I can't do that because(1) there are too many different religions all making that claim to try themall and (2) my understanding of the brain tells me that it's easy to convinceyourself of something false once you believe it.

But how do I know what I know about the brain? Isn't it a little circular totrust what empiricism tells me about brain function? Only if you're a nihilist!You don't have to say that empiricism is the only way to know anything as afirst principle. You just accept that it can tell you something.... then....

Going back to my parable of the buried jar of specific things. Suppose thatinstead of "just faith" the guy makes the absurd prediction bytelling another story that seems, at first to an outsider, to be just as crazyand unlikely as the prediction. Religions and science are in the same boat onthis one.

But then suppose we look and he turns out to be right! We might still thinkit's a trick. Wouldn't we? But we might be willing to give it another look.Then suppose something even more miraculous happens. He uses the same crazystory to make another and another and another seemingly unrelated and totallyabsurd prediction. At some point, we start to lend a little weight to thestory. Even if we don't believe the truth in the story, we must recognize thatit has some power. At this point, religion and science are still in the sameboat but they have started to diverge.

So, you then take it to the next level and try it out for yourself. Take thecrazy story and use it to make a prediction of your own. If you then find thatit actually works over and over, you're hooked on that story. It's no longerjust a thing with some power, but it's a thing approaching that quality wemight call "truth". But at this point in the parable, religion andscience have completely diverged.

This only happens with the kind of story we call "science" and if ithappened to a religion, we would simply apply the term "science" tothat aspect of the religion that achieves the kind of magic that scienceachieves with the same kind of detailed and reusable story that science tells.There is no reason that a particular story or model can be only"religion" OR "science" and not both, other than the factthat there aren't many.

If you are looking to explain the world then religion might be a goodtool. Religions are designed to explain the world in a language thatmakes sense to people. In this sense it might even be fair to label some waysof thinking about evolution as "religion" because it makes sense andexplains so much [or "faith" in the sense that you need some faith tonot be a solipsist, though "not being a solipsist" is also an instinctual default that somewhat nullifies any label you try to apply toit]. So belief in evolution might be religion in that sense, but it's ALSOsomething else that faith and religion are not: Science makes outlandishpredictions that turn out to be true! And it does so over and over inunexpected ways starting from the same seemingly absurd [to the uninitiated]story.

Is It Really Just Math?

2011-09-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

The one major flaw in everything Obama says is that he assumes people will listen, think about what he says, and then translate it into their own moral frame. Instead, people react based purely on their programmed response to symbols.

Consider Boehner's response that "Pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership." Pitting the other group (wealth) against the one group (the other 98%) IS acceptable because the other 98% are "not pulling their weight". But "pitting the majority against the wealthy privileged few" is unacceptable even when some of those privileged few agree with the technical analysis. Presenting FACTS that contradict the symbolism of right wing ideology is itself morally wrong! What?

This is a persistent failing of the center-left. Rather than present their case as a moral argument, they present a purely technical case from the FACTS. "It's not class warfare, it's just math." They think they are protecting themselves from moral counter-arguments when in fact they are doing just the opposite. By doing this, they open themselves to purely moral arguments that don't need to account for the facts at all!

Santorum is a Defective Human Being

2011-06-07T17:48:00.000-07:00

Santorum may be slick, but the man is vile, and now he's running for President. Of course, we all remember his hateful statements about gays, but that's only the beginning of where his defective humanity begins to expose itself.

Naturally, his position on climate change is that the science should be judged by political power and economic interests. Don't bother to look at what the actual science says -- in fact, we probably shouldn't even be doing science with the potential to threaten the legitimacy of industries that fund our political careers. But it gets worse!

Consider his position on stem cells. Naturally, he would rather stifle medical research than allow a few clumps of human cells to be used for medical research with the potential to alleviate human suffering. The cells in question would likely not even have something recognizable as a brain, but slick Rick opposes it on the grounds that he is "pro-life" and an embryo qualifies as life. What he really means is that it has a soul, of course. He has no trouble eating meat daily which generates actual pain and suffering of living creatures on an industrial scale. No, he's concerned about the soul in the microscopic, brainless mass of cells at the expense of countless people! What a sick fuck! But it gets worse!

On biology education, he wants to abandon 150 years of progress and go back to teaching biology pre-evolution. This is like going back to chemistry before the periodic table. Shall we teach children the "flat earth theory" because some religious doctrines refuse to accept the well established evidence of modern science? Not unless we are going to teach the flying spaghetti monster as well.

Rick Santorum is exactly what we don't need in the White House.

The Largest Financial Scam in History

2011-01-28T16:20:00.001-08:00

All the talk of Reagan's legacy along with the dire warnings that we need to make "cuts" in programs like Social Security have made it impossible for me to ignore this any longer. Those of us who have been paying into Social Security for the last 30 years have been ripped off. Or at least we will if some have their way....

A $2.5 Trillion Broken Promise?

We are the victims of the largest financial scam in history, "the Social Security Trust Fund," or as it's called by politicians who oppose Social Security "an accounting fiction." I support Social Security, so you might expect me to disagree with them, but look at it this way. If I lend someone money based on a promise to pay me back and then a week later, they call that promise "meaningless" I might start to suspect that they've just ripped me off, no? So we can agree to call the promise "meaningless" -- just with slightly different perspectives depending on which side of the promise we're on.

You see, if these assets are just an accounting fiction, then so is a portion of the money that came out of your paycheck for "Social Security" over the last 30 years. That's odd. It sure didn't feel like an "accounting fiction" when they were subtracting it from my paycheck or when I was paying even more as a self-employment tax.

"Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme"

The opponents of Social Security like to say that it's a Ponzi Scheme. It's not, exactly. Some just use the term loosely, but I prefer to use such specific terms correctly. A Ponzi Scheme claims to be an investment fund, but instead of investing the money, the steward just takes the money. If more people are joining the fund than leaving, those leaving can take their original money with "gains" that are actually only given to create an illusion of a fund that is earning money. Social Security, at it's core is not an investment fund. It's an insurance system. People pay premiums into the system, and if they reach the condition they are insuring for, they make claims and take the payout. As it was originally structured, the system did not hold on to a savings fund, it just payed claims from it's income.

But the system ran into trouble in the Reagan era, requiring changes in premiums, benefit levels, and/or benefit eligibility [e.g. retirement age]. Recognizing another such bump down the road, Greenspan and Reagan created a financial device to help prepare for it. They increased premiums in advance to "save" money for the future in the form of specialty treasure bonds designed just for this purpose.

You could say it that way. Or...

Or, you could say they thought it was a shame to have such a massive stream of money flowing through the system with no mechanism for the private sector to skim money off the top, so they engineered a way to steal trillions of dollars from it. Of course, those trillions weren't just stolen outright -- they went to pay for important government expenses, like no-bid contracts for Halliburton, or foreign aid to help other countries develop their own no-bid contracts for Halliburton. You could call it a Ponzi scheme speaking very loosely, but on the other hand, this money actually is held in treasury bonds, so the only real fraud is in on the part of those politicians who have no intention of letting those bonds be redeemed.

What Does It Even Mean to "Cut" Social Security

So Social Security is an insurance system that generally pays "claims" (aka benefits) with the "premiums" (aka taxes) it takes in for that specific purpose. They collect those taxes separately from the other taxes we pay, so you can see it for yourself! They keep their accounts separate, too. Now it also has a big pile of treasury bonds it's accumulated with the hope of cashing them in to pay benefits. So what does it mean to make "cuts" in the program? Reduce benefits? I suppose so, but obviously not below the amount that can be covered by incoming premiums, right? Well, the government has become accustomed to using the money it borrows from Social Security, so maybe they do mean that low. No. In theory, it could give higher benefits than are covered by incoming premiums since it has this $2.5 trillion in savings it collected from working baby boomers ... collected specifically to cover their benefits when they reached retirement ... as many now are. So what does it MEAN to "cut" Social Security?

"Cut" normally just means reducing the amount of money spent, but it's not so simple in this case. The system has always been self-sufficient, and in the last 30 years it's actually brought in more money than it spent. So what does it mean? In this case, "cut" means breaking the promise to allow social security to redeem those treasury bonds it holds as was the plan we were sold when we started issuing those bonds. In a sense it is a cut, but it' s not a cut from spending a certain amount on the program to spending less on it. Legally and financially, it's a "cut in spending" the same way it's a "cut in spending" for me to stop making the car payments I owe to the bank.

It Hasn't Happened Yet

In theory, this hypothetical largest financial scam in history hasn't actually happened yet. Congress has not formally voided those bonds, and the national debt still includes the money owed to Social Security. I will remind you again that that money was payed specifically TO Social Security, so it's not just an "opinion" that Social Security should get that money. Perhaps you are opposed to Social Security in principle. Suppose they created a separate tax specifically for a program you support, but then they borrowed some of that money for programs you don't support. Then suppose they decided they didn't need to pay that money back. It hasn't really happened yet. What has happened recently is that the Social Security taxes were reduced, moving up [to right about now] the date when the inevitable showdown occurs. So here it is. A showdown is over whether those bonds represent money that we really owe to Social Security or "just an accounting fiction" [aka a legally binding financial savings instrument] that we can void whenever we are ready to be "honest" [aka dishonest] about Social Security.

The optimist in me hopes that the left in Washington [who am I kidding, they are centrists at best] let the payroll tax come down last year so they could have this showdown in a more favorable political environment (such as shortly after Obama's re-election campaign or perhaps as a campaign talking point). If this country slips much further into this dumbed-down far-right reactionary stupor, they will not only get enough people to enthusiastically support the elimination of Social Security, they will get away with it. And hardly anyone will have noticed the largest financial scam in history.

Refudiate This, Sarah Palin!

2010-11-23T06:26:00.000-08:00

Refudiate! Really?

Yes! Really! The word has legitimate meaning in principle. It would mean to simultaneously refute and repudiate something, such as a political position. But here's the problem: Palin, who coined it, misused it! The correct word was repudiate! Perhaps she realized that and, doubling down on her mistakes [as she always does] she used the word "refute" in its place in a later tweet! WHAT THE FOX!

So let's boil it down! here are the relevant definitions from Merriam-Webster:

refute, transitive verb, 1. to prove wrong by argument or evidence : show to be false or erroneous. 2. to deny the truth or accuracy of

repudiate, transitive verb, 1. to refuse to have anything to do with : disown. 2. a : to refuse to accept; especially : to reject as unauthorized or as having no binding force. b : to reject as untrue or unjust

So, they are similar and related, and repudiate can often take the place of refute, but there is an important distinction. One is about logic and fact whereas the other is about position and opinion. So this confusion is more than a misuse of English or the coining of a new useful word. In the case of Palin, it was a Freudian slip. Like many people poorly educated in epistemology, she has a fundamental inability to separate fact and logic on one side from opinion, belief, and feelings on the other. I'm not going to claim that I'm perfect. People naturally have their judgment clouded by opinions and beliefs, but the ability to distinguish between them in principle is vital for handling complex and controversial issues. What we need in a leader is the ability to cut through the noise and strong feelings that dominate such issues to find the core, and then calmly and rationally explain it to both sides. Palin, more or less in every single case, just joins in with the rabble.

This "folksiness" is precisely why the "liberal elite" dislikes Palin so much, but also why her fans love her so much. One can refute her positions all day long, but her fans she will never repudiate her -- refuting Palin only makes them love her more, precisely because they don't know the difference between refute and repudiate!

Judges, Central Arizona Water Conservation District, Propositions

2010-10-11T23:43:00.000-07:00

Voting on all those nonpartisan items on the ballot can be difficult and time-consuming, so I figured I would post my work in case anyone wants to copy. I try to show my work, too, in case you want to use it to vote a little differently.

Judges:

Sources:
JPR - the nonpartisan AZ Commission on Judicial Performance Review
azvoterguide - relatively honest & transparent, seems conservative biased
azjudgesreview - right-wing review of judges based on primarily on partisan ideology

Methodology:
The general approach I used was to look at the right-wing site and apply a more or less critical eye to judges depending on how much they loved the person. The 4 people on my ballot with "top" reviews from the right wingers were looked at, and none of them were sparkling clean. In the second tier of the right-wing review, there were "lean conservative" judges. In these cases, I looked through them from other sources to decide. I decided Yes on two and No on three. For the other nine in this tier, I decide to leave them blank rather than vote Yes to avoid negating the votes of a more informed liberal.

Supreme Court:

Yes:
Rebecca Berch - Despite being a relatively conservative Republican and Republican appointee, she is given weaker reviews from right-wing due to outcomes of some "values" cases [the far right wants more extreme right-wing judicial activists, not just judges who happen to be conservative Republicans]. Perfect integrity scores and nearly perfect on other measures in JPR.

Court of Appeals, Division I:

Strong No: Daniel Barker - Religious-right activist, lowest JPR Integrity scores in Court of Appeals.

Maybe [blank]:
John Gemmil - Support from right wing site, but high JPR integrity scores and wrote appropriately nuanced responses to azvoterguide.

Yes:
Patrick Irvine Lawrence Winthrop

Maricopa Superior Court:

No: Peter Reinstein - Actively promoted by right wing group despite low JPR survey results, including low integrity scores and very low communication score.
Kenneth Mangum - Well rated by right wing group, low integrity rating on JRP survey responses.

Maybe/No:
Brian Ishikawa - Actively promoted by right wing group, but no other hints of impropriety.
Eileen Willett - Actively promoted by right wing group and likely religious conservative, but no other hints of impropriety.
Alfred Fenzel - Well rated by right wing group, and relatively low JRP integrity ratings.
Jean Hoag - Well rated by right wing group, and relatively low JRP integrity ratings.

Maybe [blank]:
Mark Aceto
Roger Brodman
Pendleton Gaines
Brian Hauser
Carey Hyatt
Michael Jones
Karen O'Connor
Maria Del Mar Verdin

Yes on all others. Mostly because of good JPR reviews and lack of strong enthusiasm from right wing review blog. In some cases, actively attacked in right wing review despite strong score in JPR. Some additional details described below:

Donahoe, Gary - Right-wing group marked him as "moderately liberal" based on rulings against partisans in specific cases that interested them -- in other words, for not being a right-wing judicial activist. Though he is a conservative, he apparently can rule fairly.
Granville, Warren J. - Though he is a Conservative Republican who supports the simplistic "judge-as-umpire" rhetoric, he is targeted as "very liberal in his decisions" by the right-wing source, indicating that he drew a case or cases where the "liberal" position happened to be on the winning side of the conservative interpretation of law.

Aimee Anderson, Richard Gama, and Susanna Pineda - These three were among those targeted as "liberal" by the right wing site, but then the site specifically admits that these judges do not appear to have any "liberal bias" and yet the right wing is targeting them solely based on partisan affiliation and/or the source of appointment.

Bethany Hicks - Worst JPR score from commission members, but 56% of commission still voted that she "meets" the standards. Though scored worse by commission, received decent responses in surveys. Based on the number of surveys, she might have a higher caseload than her peers???

Central Arizona Water Conservation District

There's an AZ Republic article on teabaggers and another one with their endorsements.

I read through the Arizona Republic's Q & A questionnaires [the teabaggers mostly abstained, but read the two who submitted them if you need a good laugh]. These are the ratings I came up with. I basically imagined four sub-scores. One for "Adm/Polit" that would include communication ability, leadership, and the skills needed to build consensus between many different groups. One for "Insight" that represents their ability to reason about the problems we face and hopefully discover the creative solutions we need. A "Prudent" score indicates how they reacted to questions about cutting their source of tax revenue, how to address the conflict(s) with the EPA, and other tough issues that seem inviting to a certain brand of short-sited thinking. Finally, the "Environment" score is exactly what you think it is. So, I put them into a chart, and came up with this:

The next question is how to vote. We can vote for up to 5. The nonpartisan in me says to vote for the top 5 scores, but the partisan tells me to only vote for the top two or three and let the Republicans cannibalize each other. I went with my top 3: Holway, Kazmi, and Fairbanks. In case it gets close between one of my top picks and one of the conservatives, I don't want to push one of the conservatives over the threshold. The risk here is that it could allow teabaggers in, but my theory is that as long as there are enough qualified people on the board, the retards won't be able to fuck it up too much.

Propositions
Like most Democrats,
No on all propositions except:
Yes on 110
Yes on 203

Glenn Beck vs MLK

2010-07-17T17:56:00.000-07:00

So Glenn Beck is planning a rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of the "I have a dream" speech. Most MLK fans find it disgusting, but I find it humorous. I've met a few Beck fans who still believe the anti-MLK propaganda [MLK is a "communist" after all! You would think Beck would be crapping all over his memory rather than celebrating him!], so they are about as mystified by it as we are!

Let's have some fun with it! Here are some MLK quotes that have been Glenn Beck-ified. Please help me come up with more:

I have a dream that one day all men will judge me not by the color of my character but by the contents of my pocketbook.

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. And it scares me! Because I've been to the mountaintop and I've looked down upon the promised land and it's a lie! Go back! Go back! There's nothing there but socialism!

The arc of the universe is almost over and it's bending toward Communism!

Life's most urgent question is: what are you doing to prepare yourself for what's coming?

Got any more ideas? I told a friend about this idea and he said that it's not particularly funny since it's right in line with Beck's style to distort an MLK quote to suite his own ideas. Well, if Beck uses one of these, it will be even more funny because it will serve as more proof of Poe's law....

Apparently, Bribery is Speech

2010-06-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

Violence is not speech, even when it is intended to convey a message -- even when it is meant AS speech, it IS NOT speech. The same should hold for money! Money is like speech in the same way violence is. I can be used to communicate, but it is NOT fundamentally speech even when communication is its intent! Further, if money is speech in any domain, why is it not speech in every domain? Why not the domain of private communication between a citizen and representative or judge? Under this interpretation, I see no reason that bribery should not be protected under the rights of individuals to petition their government. I therefore question the integrity of any representative or judge who supports such an interpretation that money IS speech.

Getting to the Heart of the Tea Party

2010-05-20T20:20:00.000-07:00

image by Caelio
The whole controversy over Rand Paul's coolness towards the Civil Right Act is a distraction from the legitimate grievances of the Tea Party. Of course, I'm talking about the most massive unconstitutional usurpation of state's rights by the federal government leading to the greatest re-distribution of wealth in our nation's history. I'm talking about the civil war and the abolition of slavery! A tall president from Illinois, aligned with emerging money interests, an urban middle class, and intellectual elites are again perpetrating atrocities against traditional values! And again, it's seen as an act of war. I just hope we find a better solution this time - not to say that we won't whup their asses again if we have to.

Yahoo! Answers Fail

2010-05-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

!@#$%&*! Seriously!

Where I Agree with the Tea Partisans

2010-04-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

image by Miroslav.brozThere is one area where I would seem to agree with the tea partiers. They want to repeal/undo the stimulus, and so do I. They think it was just another example of wasteful liberal taxing and spending. I would say that they are ignorant about what the recovery act is -- that it's having the impact it was designed to have, and as the economy stabilizes, we should pay it back! But pay what back, exactly? When you break it down, where it seemed we agree on policy, it turns out our policy positions could not be more different!

First, consider the largest portions of the stimulus: infrastructure development and middle class tax cuts. What does it mean to "repeal" or "undo" or otherwise take this money back?

How do you "undo" infrastructure development where it's already been funded? It would be insane to destroy infrastructure, and only slightly less insane to cancel infrastructure projects already underway, especially where they are badly overdue anyway [remember the Minneapolis bridge collapse]. The obvious, prudent answer is to make up for the additional debt incurred by spending less on infrastructure in the future. Many infrastructure projects are anticipated needs anyway, so we shouldn't have too much problem there. Is that what the tea partisans mean? Not exactly. What they really mean is that they have no clue what's in the stimulus. Many of the politicians who railed against it and are running against it, attended ribbon-cuttings in their districts to implicitly take credit for these "obviously" needed infrastructure projects. They don't want those projects stopped. Their position is not one of policy! It seems to be a purely rhetorical position preying on the ignorance of the audience rather than advancing shared goals with them.

How do you "undo" the tax cuts included in the stimulus? We would not only have to take those tax benefits away, we would have to raise taxes to make up for the additional debt incurred. Sure! As the economy stabilizes, I think we should raise taxes [and cut wasteful spending] to pay down the debt! Are the tea partisans suggesting that we raise taxes? No! From their rhetoric, it would again seem that the tea partisans are simply not aware of what's in the stimulus. So it's not so much about a policy position as it is about exploiting ignorance. If we give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they aren't that ignorant, perhaps we could interpret their position as a philosophical one. Perhaps they want to go back in time and undo those tax cuts, so that we pay more taxes when the economy is in free fall, and in the future, once the economy is stabilized, then cut taxes. That would be the opposite of my position.

This brings us to the part of the stimulus they hate the most: [scary font]entitlements[/scary font]. Never mind that the entitlements in the stimulus were temporary increases in funding to unemployment and Medicaid, both of which saw greater burdens precisely because the economy was hurting. You have to be unemployed or extremely poor to qualify for those programs, and the failing economy created more people in those two categories. So, how would we claw that money back? Maybe we can sell the yachts they bought with the money? If you believe that, there is no hope for you. The rest of us know that unemployment and Medicaid expenses went to pay for basic costs of living, mostly in the form of products and services that were bought from businesses, consumed, and no longer have value except in the well-being of a living person! We could go to the grocers and doctors and ask them for the money back, but they sold something they can't get back -- that would be unfair and it would put a lot of them out of business. Maybe we could grind up the poor and sell the meat as in Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal. Setting aside the moral absurdity, even some right-wingers would tell you that reducing the population in that manner would make the labor market less favorable to business interests as there would be fewer people begging for jobs and thus market pressure to pay workers more. We progressives are against cannibalism because it is morally wrong. So what is it they want? Again, they seem to want to go back in time and yank out the safety net that saved so many hard working people who were hit by the failing economy.

It turns out that I really don't have any common ground with the tea partisans after all.

The "Cap and Tax" rhetoric is even more misleading than we're giving them credit for

2010-03-31T09:38:00.000-07:00

The Cap and Trade approach is deeply flawed, but the criticism from groups that call it "Cap and Tax" is dishonest. It's dishonest not merely because it is not literally a tax but because there is a better, more equitable, more effective, and less economically damaging approach that actually does literally involve a tax! To frame Cap and Trade as a "tax," spoken with a sneer implying that taxes are fundamentally evil, blocks off the political avenue of even considering this better solution! Check it out at carbontax.org.

Offsets are flawed. The whole idea of cap and trade is problematic and it opens the door for more crony capitalism, but it would have some positive impact compared doing to doing nothing. But there is no doubt that capping emissions and requiring heavy emitters to purchase offsets would increase costs for those heavy emitters. Thus, the opposition has taken to framing Cap and Trade as "Cap and Tax." How clever. How biting. How dishonest.

A tax would be better! A fairly administered revenue-neutral carbon tax is what we need. It's not about playing favorites between industries. It's simply a recognition that certain economic activity generates externalities that the market does not factor into price, and as we recognize greenhouse gas emissions as one such problem, we can put in place a revenue neutral tax. A revenue-neutral tax is simply a way for us to collectively decide that what the hidden cost for a particular activity is, tax it at a level based on our estimate of that hidden cost, and then distribute the revenue from those taxes back out to everyone equally. The result is not bigger government, but simply a market value attached to the activity that produces the externality.

I think it's brilliant. Now ... how to sell it with a catchy slogan. That's much harder than convincing a thinking person that the policy is right....

Wishing it doesn't make it true...

2010-03-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

...But doing it does.

A recent letter to the editor in the Arizona Republic boldly complained "If the House of Representatives agrees to deem President Barack Obama's health-care reform bill passed without taking a vote, then I'd like to deem my 2009 federal income tax paid without having to write a check."

You can, Ms Oeste! You can! Just have someone else do it for you. If they do it, you can deem it done and take credit for it. If they don't, well it's still on you, so you didn't really shirk any responsibilities now, did you?

It is troubling that people can be so ignorant of how their government works but still demand that their voices be heard. Say something that actually makes sense and your leaders might hear it. I think a lot of people are going to either be confused when they hear the vote tally or assume the procedure to "deem it passed" was not used. How sad.

But the Democrats are using a strategy that only works for people who understand the policy and the procedure. What they seem to not understand is that the people they need to convince have no clue! It's a fine like to walk, having a serious conversation with people who have no clue without talking down to them. A better strategy would have been to refuse to discuss the procedure and just say "we don't know yet" until the amendments are finalized and they have "a promise" from their colleagues in the Senate. People understand "a promise"! If someone blames them for voting for the unfixed bill... if the fixes are the law, then who cares. "I voted to get rid of the corn-husker kickback, " they could say, " and we won that for you." If the fixes do not become law, they could blame their Senate colleagues for breaking the promise, but better yet, why not blame the Senate Republicans for refusing to take up the fixes? "I voted out the corn-husker kickback," they could say, "but the Senate Republicans wouldn't even consider it. Apparently for all their negativity, they actually like the corn-husker kickback." If the so-called corn-husker kickback is the law of the land and I am a representative on record voting against it, it's a plausible defense.

EDIT:
So the Democrats backed down from "deem and pass" on Sunday. I've had a to argue with too many Democrats about this. They think it was a good move because it made the issue moot and showed courage to do it straight up without the political cover and/or because it knocked the Republican propaganda machine off its game for a little while because they were planning to have that talking point for a while longer [it seems like Boehner's speech was originally written with that talking point in mind, so it kinda worked]. I somewhat disagree with both arguments, because both of these assume that the individuals who believed the misinformation to begin with have half a clue. They do not. The talking point remains firmly established among the rank and file. The fact that it is now "even more false" means nothing to them because to them, it is still true.

2010-03-13T21:05:00.000-08:00

The Honorable John Shadegg
U.S. House of Representatives
436 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Mr. Shadegg,

I recently attended your health care town hall at Scottsdale Christian Academy. While I greatly appreciate the opportunity to express our concerns directly and hear your positions more clearly, without the filter of the media, I was deeply dismayed by one exchange.

A women stood at a microphone shaking and angry. At the center of her rage at the moment was "this student loan thing" that the Democrats are trying to incorporate through reconciliation into their health care bill. The woman clearly had the impression that the provision in question represented increased social spending that she and the other taxpayers would now "have to pay for." I am not going to claim that your position on this has no merit. I recognize the validity of arguments on both sides. Perhaps there are arguments that could push me to support your position, but that never came up! You couldn't present your position because it would have corrected her, and you chose instead to leverage her ignorance to rally political forces. You instead gave a short statement of your position carefully worded to support a specific misinterpretation. You allowed her and others to leave still believing the same falsehood and still extremely angry about it.

As far as I'm concerned, your response was just as bad as stating the lie itself. I take every chance I find to correct people on the facts, even at the expense of their enthusiasm for my ideology. Is your ideology really so weak that it can't stand the light of day? Why should you admit such weakness in your ideas and ideals by failing to take the high road so easily laid out in front of you? I believe that increasing the knowledge of civic participants leads to better outcomes more surely than the program of any other ideology. Maybe that's not an option. Much of what you said sounded reasonable, but in retrospect, I have to assume you were just outright lying the entire time. Every single one of your props was misleading in some way. Am I just a liberal intellectual elitists who doesn't understand the concerns of real Americans, and you a sleazy snake oil salesman, and never the twain shall meet?

Sincerely,

Obama Concedes, Draws Criticism from Conservatives

2010-01-09T10:02:00.000-08:00

In a press conference this weekend, Obama admitted that the conservatives have been right all along on pretty much every issue, touching off more sharp criticism from conservative commentators for not going far enough.

When pressed for specifics, the president began to waver, saying that "they've been right and we've been wrong on pretty much all the issues of our time." This was taken as a slap in the face to those on the right hoping for a more broad admission to being wrong about every historical issue as well.

"On health care," the president continued, "they've been right to focus on business profitability and philosophical threats from early twentieth century political movements rather than public health data and the impacts of public health policy. On foreign policy, they've been right to focus more on immediate and generous aggression and the scaling back of civil liberties rather than on careful application of diplomacy and force that takes into account historical baggage and cultural differences and aims at well-defined objectives. Even on my status as an American. I have to admit that the official record of my birth with the state of Hawaii is a fraud...." This last point prompted outrage from numerous groups on the far right, demanding that he stop lying and admit that those documents don't actually exist.

In the final question of the conference, when asked if he would admit once and for all that "everything President Obama says is a lie," he drew a hard line and refused, saying "I wish I could, but I think it would invoke a logical paradox.... I'll have my press secretary work on it. I think we can deliver that message without as much ambiguity or absurdity if we do it in just the right way." As one outraged blogger exclaimed about this assertion "Liberal elitist bullshit! Who cares about some pair of ducks? What does that even mean? Obviously, he's not an American. He doesn't even talk like one!"

More Proof that Obama Hates America!

2009-10-28T17:51:00.000-07:00

According to one source, at a recent luncheon for war veterans, just before he was to go on stage to deliver a speech, Obama farted! The more carefully you watch, the more clear it becomes how much Obama hates America! Of course the few remaining Obama supporters are frantically trying to defend him with some of the most absurd arguments you will ever hear. One Obama supporter summed up the sentiment, saying "farts happen -- this whole conversation is dumb". Of course they happen, but he obviously carefully timed the fart to say to those patiently waiting war heroes "this is what I think of you and your sacrifice."

Video and audio from the event, however, give no hint that he farted, and another source who was near him at the time says he did not see, hear, or smell Obama's fart. This all seems a little too suspicious. By all accounts, cole slaw and a three bean salad were a large portion of the lunch. Did Obama not even eat the food served at the event? Does he have a cure for flatulence that he won't tell us about? Maybe he's not even an American! Those are the least nefarious explanations I can think of -- it's almost certainly something much worse! Clearly, he's hiding something!

Obviously, whether or not he farted is completely beside the point, but it helps to illustrate how much Obama hates America. He cannot be trusted! We must remain vigilant!

Lieberman the Antisemite

2009-10-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else see the dollar signs in Joe Lieberman's eyes? Almost as soon as talk fires up about the health reform bill reaching the floor of the Senate -- almost as soon as Olympia Snowe steps down from her position as "the swing vote" by announcing that she will vote with her party on the procedural question of whether to allow an up-or-down vote on a bill....

...Almost as soon as this power vacuum appears along with the millions of dollars in health insurance and pharmaceutical industry money that are sure to go to the occupant of that spot... Lieberman pops up like a Nazi propaganda cartoon caricature of the greedy Jew who can't resist the smell of money! "Me me me me! I'm the swing vote. I'll sell out the Democrats again for a little more money and power!"

Does anyone else find this offensive to Jews? I am a Jew, and I find this offensive.

An Apology on Behalf of Grayson

2009-10-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

Republicans are calling for Democratic representative Alan Grayson to apologize for citing reseach by a Harvard scientist that unfairly exposes the depth of their bloodlust and the degree to which they will sacrifice the health, security, and quality of life for the general population for a little extra cash with which to go whoring.

It's an outrage, and it's part of a pattern that goes beyond Grayson. Democrats have taken to unfairly citing data when it's clear that the data are so blatantly and unfairly skewed. The data almost universally favor the progressive position on this, leaving the right only the tactics of distortion and fear mongering.

On behalf of progressives, I apologize for the data. But I also call on the data itself to change. After all, isn't the data really to blame here? It's time for the data to be more balanced to allow anti-progress ideologues the option to make rational arguments in support of their position should they wish to do so.

Don't take my word for it, but...

2009-09-16T18:25:00.001-07:00

When someone feels the need to say "don't take my word for it," it's usually a good idea to not take their word for it.

My Country for a Thesaurus

2009-09-15T10:49:00.000-07:00

Those who would give up the words "Essential" and "Temporary" deserve neither "Liberty" nor "Safety"

More Rights to Demand

2009-09-04T14:54:00.000-07:00

The political right across the country is rising up to say "NO" to reliable and affordable health insurance. While they may not be able to completely stop it within the framework allowed by the Constitution, they have found a few ways to limit the encroachment. In Georgia and Arizona, for example, we find proposals to guarantee the right of individuals to purchase health services, so that regardless of what a government insurance plan might cover, individuals will always have the right, if they choose, to pay for it out of their own pocket instead. While, I don't disagree with such measures, I think it's time for those of us who want reform to get in on this strategy, too!

It's time to regulate the practice of insurance companies harvesting organs without explicit consent due to a lapse in coverage. Insurance companies never have the right to harvest your organs without your explicit consent unless they submit an appeal to the FDA that the specific contractual provision being invoked represents an "innovation" and thus regulation preventing it stifles innovation and restricts their individual freedom as a corporation.

Also, I think it's time to put some regulations in place to prevent drug manufacturing and marketing companies from testing experimental drugs on children without first informing their parents. This could slow advances and reduce the profitability of a large portion of our economy, but I think we can all agree that it's the right thing to do. At the very least, we should require that parents be informed within a year of the completion of such experiments so that they may better decide how to deal with its residual impacts.

Finally, we should demand a law that forbids the GOP from releasing genetically enhanced infectious diseases into the general population without first informing a board of physicians and epidemiologists at the CDC. Some might go so far as to require a vote before allowing such a practice, but that might stifle the freedom of the GOP to do and say whatever they want to get their way.

As we can see there are a lot of proposals on both sides of the table. These are tough questions that I hope we can tackle. I also hope we can give both sides fair consideration. Perhaps we should start by laying them all out and discussing the pros and cons. We might also consider compromises. On proposals to guarantee the rights of individuals to pay for services [rights that we find in places such as the UK and Canada where their highly socialized systems are somewhat tempered and augmented by the free market], we might consider adding a measure to inform the individuals of the choices they actually have and/or measures to limit businesses from collecting such payments for services from both the patient and the government provided insurance without informing the patient. On the proposal to limit the GOP's release of engineered diseases, I don't know if we can find a compromise on such an important check of GOP power, but we might offer other concessions they would need, such as unlimited public restroom gay sex with strangers.

The Slippery Slope

2009-09-02T18:26:00.001-07:00

Slippery slope arguments put us on a slippery slope to equating any social contract with totalitarianism. Hitler used slippery slope arguments too, you know!

Can you diagram this sentence?

2009-08-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

Do you remember how to diagram sentences? Help me diagram this one:

No taxation without representation.

I ask because I think it describes my overriding political philosophy more closely than any other pithy political slogan in history and yet people who claim to idealize the political movement where it originated are so opposed to everything I believe. What gives?

Maybe I would make it "no imposition without representation" but that "imposition" would certainly include taxation, so I don't think that's the disconnect. Also, I see the whole sentence as vital to it's meaning... the imposition, the representation, and the logical construct "no X without Y." It would not mean the same thing to say "no X and we demand Y" or just "we demand Y" or "No X.... " or "I'm a retard with a gun who doesn't know anything about history or political philosophy, but I am angry and easily propagandized by xenophobic sentiment."

Maybe it's just my interpretation, but I was thinking a sentence diagram might help to clarify the distinction.

Too Disconnected Healthcare Debates

2009-08-25T00:44:00.001-07:00

I think I just realized where the disconnect is!

Ultimately, the one rational argument against a modern healthcare system is the Friedman-style philosophy of self interest and greed as a force for good. There is validity in the free-market principles themselves. We could have that debate, but that's not the debate we see. Instead the debate is jumping from one outright lie designed to drum up fear to another. Which leads me to the disconnect.

It's in the "self interest" of the wingnuts to lie and drum up fear to help them win the political fight. So, this is one of the places where Friedman's philosophy fails. In political debates and arguments over questions of knowledge and fact, it creates misunderstanding and moves us further away from solving the problem at hand.

Another place that pure self-interest fails is in healthcare economics. Healthcare businesses generally make more money the more ill we get and the more expensive care gets. Insurers benefit because they get to "skim" from a statistically much larger pool of money as costs increase [I'm not opposed to insurance -- just stating the fact of how the business model works]. So, it's in their interest that we pay a higher portion of our GDP in healthcare costs and it's in their interest that we need more treatments and procedures. Sure, you could have informed [or just frugal] consumers to counteract those forces, but in a purely market-based system, the only people who would really understand medicine in all its technical detail would be people who profit from more illness, more treatments, more procedures, and higher costs.

This of course doesn't prove whether healthcare is better in a pure market-based system, a purely socialized system, or a hybrid. All we really have are metrics. The metrics and the ethics implied by them is what this debate should be about. Look at all the variety of solutions around this country and the world and the wealth of DATA we have on the cost and quality of outcomes! It's amazing how much there is! Even more amazing is how little of it we are talking about in a debate that is presumably about the cost and quality of healthcare!

The Healthcare Debate In a Nutshell

2009-08-24T16:28:00.000-07:00

Progressive: Look at this data. We can have a better healthcare system!
Reactionary: So it's going to cost more?
Progressive: No. Less.
Reactionary: So less quality healthcare?
Progressive: No. More. Did you look at the data?
Reactionary: That's socialism! They are going to take away our freedom!
Progressive: Okay, we'll make it optional. But did you look at the data?
Reactionary: That's not your choice to make! It's my choice! You are not allowed to give me a choice because it was already my choice to begin with.
Progressive: Uhm...... Okay.
Reactionary: No! It's not okay! This ... means ... WAR!

Really?

Where's the Debate?

2009-08-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

So are there legitimate arguments against this thing? Sure. Consider the horrible quality of care in countries with nationalized healthcare. As explained in this editorial, "Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless." Of course, they have now corrected the article by removing the original reference to Hawking and including a correction at the top that they regret having "implied that .. Hawking ... did not live in the UK." Yes, Hawking is from the UK and has turned up to defend his nation's healthcare system.

So they had to fib a little, but their point remains intact: there are legitimate arguments against modern healthcare systems like those of every other developed country in the world. For example, Conservatives for Patients Rights found three cases where the British NHS fell short of expectations illustrating the problems with socialized medicine. Although two of the three later complained that their views were misrepresented and that they actually support the NHS and universal healthcare, but again these are just anecdotes anyway. Nothing ever goes wrong in the US healthcare system, right? ...as long as you are wealthy or have a job that offers insurance and the insurance company decides to cover you, right? No mistakes here!

To be fair, I'm sure they could have found three Brits to prove their point if they had tried a little harder. I can find plenty of anecdotes from the US to prove the point that the the US system lets people down. We can find nationalists/patriots in every modern industrialized nation who swear that their system is the best. Wouldn't some metrics be more meaningful than dueling anecdotes? I think so. Are there legitimate arguments against "socialist" healthcare systems like the ones every other industrialized nation in the world has? I'm sure there are. I just haven't found anyone who takes the opposing side yet. Plenty of people screaming "bloody murder! Fascism! Communism!... BOO! Be afraid, they are coming to get us!" But no one yet who is willing to discuss the metrics, ethics, and market forces rationally from the opposing side. I'm waiting. Until then, don't accuse me of name calling, you F*CKING RETARD!

Gingrich v Gingrich, and Palin Forgets Her Own Name

2009-08-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

Perhaps Palin and Gingrich aren't so nuts after all. Maybe Palin is just dumb and Gingrich is just a shameless bloodthirsty monster.

According to an old press release, Palin publicly promoted end-of-life planning -- dedicated a day to it as governor of Alaska. The evidence is still up on the Alaska state web site. I'm not sure why she has changed her position so abruptly that she now considers the promotion of such activities tantamount to Marxist death panels, but I suspect it has something to do with the intricacies of the executive office. Consider the time Palin went on "Stump the Candidate" and she couldn't name a supreme court decision she disagreed with other than Roe. While it's sad that she couldn't name Dred Scott or Plessy v Ferguson, it is even more sad that she couldn't think of the Exxon case she had publicly criticized only three months earlier. So perhaps Palin is a bad example here since she is lacking in the mental capacity needed for a fair debate.

Consider Newt Gingrich, then. Gingrich also has come out against the provision to cover end-of-life counseling, a provision sponsored in part by Johnny Isakson, a Republican from Georgia. This puts Gingrich at odds with Isakson, but it also puts Gingrich at odds with another Republican from Georgia named Newt Gingrich. Just prior to this issue being raised into the spotlight, Gingrich himself suggested for Medicare exactly the provision being debated in this bill. Of course, to be fair, it also puts Isakson at odds with Isakson... no wait, I think he switched back again.

In conclusion, WTF?

The Time Has Come

2009-08-13T15:33:00.000-07:00

When a person's mind is so degraded that they are no longer connected with reality and when they have become such a burden that their continued existence does more damage than they ever had to offer in positive contributions, it is time for that person to pass away.

That's why I believe it is time to euthanize Sarah Palin. I would typically say that someone with resources should be allowed to employ any available and legal technology to extend their own life as they choose. When it's no longer a question of whether a person will die but when they will die -- when death appears imminent, we should look to help them strike a balance between extending life and allowing them to die with dignity and without too much unnecessary stress. Each person should be allowed to decide for themselves, within reason, how that balance should be struck. This general framework remains equally valid even as individual options, such as euthanasia or the world's most expensive hospice care, are removed from the equation by ethical and practical considerations.

I believe this general view is shared widely among reasonable people. But I would hope as a civil society, we can all agree to make an exception in the case of Sarah Palin.

P.S. This was originally intended as a joke, but I have since realized that the logic here is more sound than anything ever heard out of Palin's mouth. It makes me wonder whether I should adopt this as a legitimate way of thinking about Palin. Then I realize the argument is flawed and more than little scatter-brained, so I must reject it as the nonsense it is. But isn't it elitist of me to reject an argument just because it is logically and ethically flawed? If I reject it simply for being nonsense, then I am an intellectual elitist and a threat to Palin's ideology, but if I accept it, then I am a potential threat to her person. Either way, I find that there is no common ground to be had.

Maybe we aren't so special after all

2009-04-04T13:48:00.000-07:00

Listening to the Origins Symposium, I was struck by a statement made by a member of the panel: "Is Our Universe Unique, and how can we find out". Someone suggested that "we have no idea" what to expect of the term of the Drake equation regarding the likelihood of forming intelligent life given the formation of life. I have to disagree. We don't have a precise estimate, but Dawkins and others have suggested a process giving a good enough idea for cosmological purposes.

There is no shortage of politically correct intellectuals who point out that there is nothing fundamentally more fit in evolutionary terms about complexity and intelligence, and intelligence is not inevitable. Why, then? Chance? We could invoke the anthropic principle and call it a fluke, but we have a better answer. Consider a simpler stage nucleic-acid based life as we know it. In the absence of selection, we expect genetic drift, and there are only two directions to move on the complexity scale: up or down. Note that there is a lower bound of complexity below which, it is no longer alive. When governed by genetic drift alone, we expect the distribution of populations to diffuse along the complexity scale. When a useful solution emerges [by chance/diffusion], as with eukaryotes, it creates a new soft lower bound for the complexity of those organisms. Below this lower bound, this new life fails.

So, we have a diffusion process together with a ratcheting mechanism that makes an increasing maximum complexity inevitable, even against selective forces that generally push in the opposite direction.

Further, once we recognize this process, it is not such a great leap to consider that more complex organisms could [and sometimes do] displace and destroy simpler ones. This supports the possibility that the lower bound on complexity for life as we know it could be a soft lower bound that emerged after earlier, simpler life forms. These simpler life forms may have been displaced, destroyed, or hidden by the more complex life.

Given our environment, maybe life is inevitable, and maybe even intelligence is inevitable. Maybe we aren't so special after all.

Anthropic Acid in the Middle of the Cosmic Pyramid

2009-04-04T11:38:00.000-07:00

When posing the questions of why/how we exist in a scientific context, the questions can be posed/organized/framed in many ways, but they typically have the same layout. The cosmos can be described as a series of scales and explanatory mechanisms roughly corresponding to the layout of the Drake equation. The possibility of life is can be seen as the product of a series of possibilities:
          Cosmological Possibility
          Universal Possibility
          Galactic/Planetary Possibility
          Chemical Possibility
          Biological Possibility
          Historical Possibility

This weekend's Origins Symposium at ASU is laid out in this way, with cosmologists speaking at the beginning leading to biologists and ending with discussions of human culture. This also corresponds roughly to Dennett's "grades of possibility" as well as the typical ladder of reductionism (philosophy -> physics -> chemistry -> biology -> social science -> philosophy -> just kidding).

Associated with different layers are different formulations of the anthropic principle. When listening to what I would usually consider one of the less interesting and more mundane layers [the formation of earth-like planets -- just a bunch of dirt flying around], I found one of the more interesting formulations of the anthropic principle. It is turning out that earth-like planets may be extremely rare.

If earth is unlikely, then why do we exist? Because we are here to ask that question, of course! DON'T assume, as cosmologists have historically done, that our region of reality/space is typical [the mediocrity principle]! We can only assume, at best, that it is typical of places like ours! It sounds a little circular, but we now have evidence of some formulations of the anthropic principle against the mediocrity principle. I haven't read the article yet, but the cover of this month's SciAm reads "DARK ENERGY Does it really exist? Or does Earth occupy a very unusual place in the universe?"

I suspect that evidence in one layer will spread the anthropic principle through the cosmological pyramid, weakening the mediocrity principle of other layers as well [In case you can't tell, I've been reading Darwin's Dangerous Idea]. Maybe we are special after all.

Dumbski

2008-12-22T15:43:00.001-08:00

I think an important point to make is that evolution by natural selection is not a very effective search algorithm. Even in gene space with realistic fitness functions, I would suspect that significant improvements could be made to the algorithm. Sure, it's a pretty robust algorithm, but I think its primary advantage is that it emerges without a creator [smirk].

On Dembski, my understanding was that he didn't merely trace the source of biological complexity to cosmic fine-tuning -- which would be a tacit admission of biological evolution. I thought he was saying that specified complexity could be found there as well as in biological complexity. While it takes a philosophical argument to tackle the question of cosmological fine-tuning, on biological evolution, we can just say he's wrong and be done with it. Am I wrong?

In a related attack on Dumbski, I have long thought that if "Specified Complexity" had any merit, it could be useful in other fields. A way [even if only in principle] to detect design! Plenty of intelligent mathematicians and engineers agree with me about the significance of such a claim, but are unable to get anything meaningful out of Dembski's work. Dembski just declares himself smarter than all of us, and wipes his hands. Does he really care so little about those other fields? If his ideas had any merit, wouldn't a meaningful, positive contribution to some other field enhance his standing and help to spread an understanding of his ideas much better than a full frontal assault on biology? It would certainly convince us skeptics that there was actually some clothing on his emperor.

To me, this behavior is the most damning evidence against him. He has this mathematical theory that claims to detect design, and if you try to make sense of it, he claims you got it wrong, he won't try to explain it because you aren't as sophisticated a mathematician as he is [unless you share his religious views, in which case you don't need to have even a basic understanding of algebra to understand his research] and then he won't even begin to discuss the factual evidence for biological evolution; instead he points back to his mathematical proof that evolution is impossible.

Did I mention that I have a mathematical proof that any and every personal attack you can make against Dembski is factually correct, even [no, especially] those that are not internally consistent. I call it "specified douchebaguery"...

Oh. I'm just getting started on Dumbski.

How Dare We Assume That There is Actually a Rational Debate Taking Place!

2008-04-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

What is it with these idiots at the deceptively named Discovery Institute trying to say that evolution isn't supported by evidence? They say that mainstream scientists "consider scientific evidence to be only a secondary consideration to metaphysical considerations" when in fact they are the ones demanding a change to the teaching of evolution but not the practice of applied scientists! If that's not putting metaphysical considerations before real evidence, I don't know what is. Where are the calls to have medical researchers and professional biologists at companies like Monsanto and ADM stop considering the theory of evolution in their work? No! It's the educational curriculum they are trying to change. I don't see Monsanto lobbying the school boards to weaken the evolution curriculum. Metaphysical? I think not! Last time I checked, Monsanto only cared about one thing: MONEY!

I hope one of my paragraphs isn't taken out of context as the "only evidence offered for evolution". But if they must pick one I hope it is this one because it has links to massive quantities of evidence, much more evidence for evolution, and a compilation of such a ridiculous quantity of evidence organized in such a way as to demonstrate the beauty and grandeur in this view of life such that it can only be denied by someone who is willfully ignorant, below average in intelligence, and mean spirited. Aside from references to thousands of scientific papers, that last site, the tree of life web project, provides hours/days/years of fun for anyone interested in nature, and it helps to demonstrate that not only is there ample evidence, but there is more solid evidence than any one person can learn in a lifetime. If you can't find enough solid evidence for evolution to fill several books, then you didn't spend enough time exploring it.

But more interesting and relevant to me than the bulk of those mountains of physical evidence is my personal story. Once upon a time, I was a high school student. Naturally, the topic of evolution came up in biology and it sparked a little debate among a few students. We had it out and that was that. As time went on, my interest in evolution grew and then later began to dwindle again. I assumed that if I went into biology or geology or chemistry , I would learn more about evolution, but I was more interested in math and physics and computer science. I eventually ended up in computer science, and what should I find? Computer Science alone has more than enough evidence for evolution to fill a few books. Hah! And now, I can hardly go an hour without accidentally seeing evidence for evolution everywhere I look -- what kind of mindset do these people have that makes them not see the evidence? Do they really see irreducible complexity everywhere? Because everywhere I look I see the emergence of complexity from relatively simple components acting locally. Like a revelation, I can now see things emerging through a process of evolution -- and I know that it is true as much as I know anything else that I can see with my eyes. And I'm an engineer! If anyone should believe in "intelligent design", it should be me!

Still, biologists haven't yet gotten around to documenting the majority of the potential pieces of evidence for evolution coming from biology. I assure you, if the primary goal of biology was to collect unique forms of evidence for biological evolution, the quantity of evidence would be even greater. Biologists: get cracking! Just kidding, I know you have more important things to do, like apply the theory of evolution to real problems like curing disease or otherwise fiddling with life to make it better for us humans (or perhaps just to make money), and if the results work, that's more evidence that the theory was correct, but who cares about new evidence for a fact that was solidly established as strongly as anything else in science by well over 50 years ago?

Bored of Education?

2008-02-22T22:27:00.000-08:00

I have about fifty posts started, and some old ones to post-date, but I had to spit this one out.

An article appearing in the Florida Baptist Witness by a member of the Florida State Board of Education states the issue as clearly as it could be said:

"Even though I am one of the seven members of the SBOE, I was unaware of the inclusion of evolution in those standards until ... last fall with my dad ... and my mother. She was reading from a local newspaper and in her own special way pointed out an article stating that evolution would be taught in Florida's public schools."

She immediately contacted the Department of Education to get a copy of the standards with every instance of the E-word flagged so that she could judge for herself. I don't doubt that the documents in question are unwieldy. But if the standards are to actually have any influence over the how science is taught, then someone with a legitimate interest in science and science education should be able to navigate them to determine how any particular subject is to be taught! What an idiot! She hadn't even read them -- a member of the board that commissioned the standards! Her interest in "science" must be pretty shallow for her not to have even skimmed the document for areas that interested her. Obviously, her interest is in science only extends to taking advantage of its fruits and stopping the dissemination of findings that seem to contradict her beliefs -- even when they correspond to the same findings.

This reminds me of a snide remark I made at the beginning of an evolution debate that didn't actually happen. A friend introduced me to another guy at a party and then she said "you two should talk about evolution" before walking away. I might have been interested in a discussion of interesting science, but at the time, I didn't really feel like debating the definition of science, so I started the talk. "So, did you major in biology?" I asked. "No, she's just trying to get me started" he said. I pretended not to understand him and continued "Did you study a lot of math?... physics? chemistry? geology? computer science? What?" He looked away for a minute and then repeated "No. She's just trying to get me started." So I said in as non-confrontational tone as possible, as if wondering to myself aloud "why would you be interested in evolution? Huh." And that was it.

All this raises the question: should evolution really be taught in high-school biology? Maybe not, as suggested by microbiologist Carl Woese in a recent article in Wired. Comparing it to quantum mechanics, he says "what they pass on as evolution in high schools is nothing but repetitious tripe that teachers don't understand." While this may be true, this could be said of most of high-school science, and at its core, evolution is one of the interesting areas of science that most high school students actually can truly understand in a fundamental and useful way -- very much unlike quantum mechanics.

That said, in my opinion, the push of the creationists to "teach the controversy" might be reasonable if done right. Obviously, it would not be in a biology class, because evolution is not a controversy in biology, but it is a controversy between science and certain people with beliefs based on non-scientific criteria. A single-semester class on the meaning, purpose and philosophy of science would do just fine. Evolution is a perfect case for study in such a class. Unlike high-school-level biology, however, such a class would actually have something to offer a student whose religious beliefs forbid them from believing the fundamental principles underlying modern biology. Some less controversial scientific findings would be important starting points [such the round-earth theory or that the earth revolves around the sun]. Rather than just passing over them as mere facts or historical curiosities, an entire week could be spent on such facts to go through all the details of what makes a piece of knowledge "science." This would allow such students to understand what science is rather than just trying to cram something down their throats.

Tune in next time when I reply to a Texas school board member who complains about the teaching of the atomic theory of matter as though it were a "fundamental concept underlying all of chemistry" when, as we all know "the atomic theory of matter is just a theory."

Personalized License Plate Appeal

2007-10-04T22:21:00.000-07:00

Special Places Review Committee
Motor Vehicle Division
PO Box 2100
Phoenix, AZ 85001

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing this appeal to protest my recent personalized plate denial for "1CE9", a tribute to the great American author and World War II veteran, Kurt Vonnegut, who tragically died this year.

By itself, the ice-nine reference may appear to be a political statement considered offensive because of Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war political stance or because ice-nine acts as an unstoppable doomsday device that threatens to destroy all life on earth and teaches us to be wary of the power of new science and technology.

I would like to assure you, however, that this is not the case. While I did wish to honor Vonnegut, I had no specific political intentions. Furthermore, and more importantly, the message was intended specifically to match the vehicle, shown below. A reference to ice-nine implies a combination of evil, danger, coldness, and advanced technology. While that message may be offensive by itself, when combined with the vehicle and a little sense of humor, it becomes a message of exaggerated hubris and literally coolness. It matched perfectly. [After all, what is cooler than ice9 except for maybe this bike?]

Sincerely...

Tune in next time for my appeals to the rejections of "CATCH22", "RM101", and "F451". I guess they don't like anti-fascist literary references either.

The Repeatedly Forgotten Debate about the Human Eye

2007-09-11T21:57:00.000-07:00

So this cartoon raises a popular argument against evolution. The snappy student asks the teacher to "...explain the simple evolution process of the human eyeball" and of course, in the cartoon, the teacher doesn't know what to say. I've never seen this debate go this way, although I have seen the anti-science person turn away and not listen to the answer.

Notice the strange phrasing, though? Sound a little like Bill Clinton talking about (and/or talking to [sic]) "that woman [,[sic]] Miss Lewinsky"? There's a reason for it! This argument previously had not included the word SIMPLE. The word SIMPLE was added in response to a debate that takes a little longer than the cartoon to understand. Basically, it goes like this:

Student: Explain the evolution process of the human eyeball
Teacher: Well, it started with a very simple cell capable of detecting light, and small incremental changes eventually added up to a complex organ like the mammalian eye.
Student: I can't imagine those steps, they must not exist.
Teacher: Well, they aren't that complicated, there are just a lot of them. Consider that light detecting cell in the middle of a patch of skin. A slight concavity of the surrounding skin would give some improved directional information.... [45 minutes later]... Then the slightest adjustments in the aperture...
Student: ... sorry I wasn't listening. I was publishing an article about how Kolmogorov complexity proves that life was designed by God. What were you blabbing about?
Teacher: Actually, the uncomputability of Kolmogorov complexity shows that you can never prove irreducible complexity, and I just explained in detail how the evolution of the eye could have occurred in very small steps.
Student: Whatever... I doubt the people reading my site know what Kolmogorov complexity is anyway... and it makes me look smart. Besides, doesn't your long complex explanation violate Occam's razor, making it bad science? Do you have a SIMPLE demonstration that the eye is not irreducibly complex? I DIDN'T THINK SO!
Teacher: Sure I do. Close your eyes and move your head around. Can you detect the sources of... [ring]
Student: I don't know, but I definitely hear a bell ringing. Time for lunch!

And so it goes. If it's not lunch, then it's some other excuse to change the subject so that they can refer back to "the human eye" as one of the arguments they won, proof that evolution is still "just a theory" -- whatever that means.

As for the other cartoons on this page, none of them even resemble something that was ever an attempt at a rational argument against evolution, so my response to them is simply "nuh-uh".

Tune in next time when I explain to the complexity-theory challenged what Kolmogorov complexity and Entropy are (and what they are not).

For more on the evolution of the eye:
Here is a nice, easy to read, article: http://library.thinkquest.org/28030/eyeevo.htm
And the more detailed wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

Authors of "Christians Misunderstand ... Evolution According to ChristiaNet.com Poll" and ChristiaNet.com Poll Misunderstand Evolution

2007-09-10T17:55:00.000-07:00

According to this article, it is important for Christians to learn the difference between micro and macro evolution. Of course, the better one understands evolution, the less meaningful the distinction becomes. Like distinguishing between a "creek" and a "river", the distinction seems clear at the extremes, but when you look for the line that separates the two, you realize that it's not a matter of a fuzzy line, but rather a line that truly doesn't exist, and in order to be precise we need a richer technical vocabulary, which involves actually studying the subject -- uh-oh.

Of course, what's really going on here is an attempt to inoculate people against science education. It isn't about facts at all, but rhetorical devices. And following the rules of science is completely out of the question!

Tune in next time when I explain how the simple expression z² + c generates the infinite variety of the Mandelbrot set and what this means for the argument that "simple things cannot generate complex things" -- and other one-liners from the anti-science folks.