closetpuritan

08:35 pm: BMI WTF?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/1459907060/in/set-72157602199008819/


3 sisters, 1 overweight, 1 normal, 1 underweight. It's hard to tell the difference between "normal" and "underweight", in particular. It looked to me like the one in the center was the underweight one and the the one on the right was normal, but apparently that's not the case--I think it looked that way because you can sort of see what the middle one's legs look like, and not the one on the right's. (I think the one on the left, based on her height, is standing on something.)

This is part of a series of photos compiled to show how narrow the "normal" range is, how "normal" the "overweight" and "obese" people look, etc., by BMI skeptics.

Of course (and some people seem confused about this), just because aesthetically "overweight" looks normal to us, that doesn't mean that health-wise it's in the "normal" range. But still, it does show just how narrow the category for "normal" weight is.

But that doesn't mean that I'm NOT skeptical of the utility of BMI. Other measurements, such as waist size seems to be better indicators, but even with waist size--I have to wonder if fat/waist size is correlated with unhealthiness rather than causing unhealthiness. I'm not at all sure that we have enough studies/data to know whether the actual situation is that people are more likely to be fat if they have unhealthy habits like not eating fruits/veggies/whole grains and being sedentary--as well as problems with obtaining quality health care, and problems as a result of yo-yo dieting and extreme dieting followed by binges. (See here, both the article itself and the comments for more on that. I've been surfing around and looking at links related to the BMI page, if you can't guess. I've been wondering about whether it's not the fat but the stuff that usually leads to being fat that causes health problems for a while [mostly since seeing this article], but I didn't realize how many problems there often were with getting decent health care when someone's obese. Obviously it must vary a lot from doctor to doctor, because a few of the commenters' weights were around my top weight, and I haven't had the kind of problems they had.)

One of the stories in the comments, which was unfortunately not the worst situation described but was perhaps the most telling, as far as the problems in getting proper medical care that attitudes toward obesity can lead to, was this one:
On the flip side, though, I'm not saying that fat is NOT some of the cause of metabolic syndrome-type difficulties, and I can't dismiss out of hand the possibility that only a very narrow range of body weights is healthy. I think we just don't have enough information to answer those questions. I do think that, regardless of the answer, the importance of weight is overemphasized compared to exercise and eating a balanced diet (not just eating less of the same types of foods you were eating before, or eating the low-fat artificial-sweetener version of everything, but still not eating any more fruits, veggies, or whole grains). The New York Times article mentioned above even says we've long known it's better to be fit and fat than sedentary and thin, but you always hear about the "obesity epidemic" and not the "sendentariness epidemic". Yet obesity gets more space in public health discussions even though it seems less important than sedentariness in its importance to health, because it's more visible--literally. Exercise usually is talked about as a means to the end of combating obesity, and much more rarely talked about as an end in itself. I'd be willing to bet that this results in people trying to exercise to lose weight, not losing any weight, and figuring that if they didn't lose weight they might as well not bother to exercise. There should be more emphasis on the fact that exercise is good for you even if it doesn't end up affecting your weight.

08:41 pm: Cadillac Records
I finally saw Cadillac Records last week, and today I finished watching all the extras and director's commentary. (I was thwarted in my attempts to see it in theaters.) I really liked it, more than I thought I would. Particularly surprising was how good Beyonce was in it. I'd seen some trailers with her singing "At Last" and noticed how she was Beyonce-ing it up/introducing an anachronistic style of singing. I've also noticed it since watching the movie in clips of it that were in the featurettes. And yet, while I was watching the movie I was having hard time hearing the Beyonce-ing of the song, even though I was kind of listening for it. I was also prepared to not like her acting after seeing stuff like this:


But again, even though to some extent I watched the movie looking for that, I did not see it. I also didn't think that she was physically a good fit, even after gaining weight. I coud not believe that the director wrote the movie with Beyonce in mind for the role, since neither her singing style nor her physical appearance seemed right, and she was not a very noted actress at that time (or really even now)--the only other thing she's been in that I know of is Dreamgirls. (A quick check of IMDB reveals that she had been in a few other movies, but just a few, and Dreamgirls was the only one I knew about without checking IMDB.) I tended to agree with other people on the internet that Queen Latifah would have been a better fit. Both her style of singing (I thought she was good in Chicago) and body type would have been a better fit. (Beyonce is in some ways a better fit than Queen Latifah, though: she is the right age, and she has the paler skin that you'd expect from someone whose father was white--although both these things could be fixed with makeup and lighting.) Still, when I saw her on screen while watching the movie, I was registering her as "the Etta character", not "Beyonce", just as my mind would register "the Howling Wolf character" and not "Eamonn Walker". I'm not sure how much credit goes to Beyonce and how much to the director for that, but rather than being as bad as I feared, she was much better than I had hoped.

None of the other actors disappointed, and most of them looked more like their real-life counterparts than Beyonce looked like Etta.

So, about the Howling Wolf character.

Howling Wolf was the coolest character in the movie. Maybe in any movie. In fact, when I grow up I want to be Howling Wolf. OK, maybe not really, but he was pretty awesome.

...Well, actually, he seemed like 80% awesome, 20% hillbilly weirdo.

One thing I couldn't figure out, though, was that they gave Howling Wolf weird mannerisms. I was reminded of Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I don't know if that was the actor's idea or the director's, or what the reasoning was behind it. That was pretty much the entire source of the hillbilly weirdo vibe. Well, probably the raggedy pickup truck we seem him with when he first shows up was somewhat responsible for the weird mannerisms seeming like weird hillbilly mannerisms.

So, about the raggedy pickup truck.

Howling Wolf's character says in his first scene that "I own it; it don't own me." And I looked up some stuff about Howling Wolf, and he did indeed drive to Chicago in his own vehicle:


This site has a clip of Eamonn Walker as Howling Wolf on its main page. In the clip, it shows Muddy Waters deciding to double Hubert Sumlin's pay in order to steal him from Howling Wolf. In fact, he tripled it.

07:55 pm: "I Believe" that Bobby Harrell doesn't know what he's talking about
I'm a day late and a dollar short (okay, 9 days late), but I didn't want to let this news item pass without comment:

"COLUMBIA, S.C. - A group that advocates separation of church and state filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to prevent South Carolina from becoming the first state to create "I Believe" license plates.

"The group contends that South Carolina's government is endorsing Christianity by allowing the plates, which would include a cross superimposed on a stained glass window.

"Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Christian pastors, a humanist pastor and a rabbi in South Carolina, along with the Hindu American Foundation...

"The bill sailed through the Legislature with little discussion earlier this year. Gov. Mark Sanford let it become law without his signature because the state already allows private groups to create license plates for any cause.

"Republican House Speaker Bobby Harrell said residents asked for a way to express their beliefs, and legislators responded.

"He disputed Lynn's accusation that they were pandering to constituents in an election year.

"'That's what critics always say when they see something they don't like,' Harrell said. "I think this has less to do with the First Amendment and more to do with their disdain for religion generally.'"

Either Bobby Harrell will say anything in order to energize his base, or he's assuming that the lawsuit is being brought by people who "disdain religion" (despite the fact that Christian pastors were among the plaintiffs) because he cannot imagine any reason why anyone would want to oppose a way for people to label themselves based on religion, unless they "disdain religion". I also note that he said "disdain" rather than "dislike", so that he could insinuate that, in addition to opposing the plates because they don't like religion, these people must be elitists who look down on the religious, as well.

"Lynn said his group would not have opposed the "I Believe" plates had they been advocated by private groups. State law allows private groups to create specialty plates as long as they first collect either a $4,000 deposit or 400 prepaid orders.

"Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer said last week that he is willing to put up the money, then get reimbursed, though the Department of Motor Vehicles spokeswoman said that isn't necessary. Bauer said the idea came from Florida, where a proposal for an "I Believe" tag failed.

"He called it a freedom-of-speech issue.

"But a Methodist pastor who joined the lawsuit, the retired Rev. Thomas Summers of Columbia, said the plate provokes discrimination.

"'I think this license plate really is divisive and creates the type of religious discord I've devoted my life to healing,' he said.

"Another of the ministers, the Rev. Robert Knight of Charleston, said the plates cheapen the Christian message.

"'As an evangelical Christian, I don't think civil religion enhances the Christian religion. It compromises it,' Knight said. 'That's the fundamental irony. It's very shallow from a Christian standpoint.'"

Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to be very shallow about religion. And they seem to believe that if they display their religion enough, they can intimidate everyone else into believing that they don't have the right to be just as annoying about their beliefs. (I think that Richard Dawkins is trying to prove that this is not the case.)

10:18 pm: Follow-up to the last 2 posts
1. At this point, I probably will vote for Clinton if she wins the Democratic nomination, contrary to what I said in my last post. Clinton and McCain are currently competing for who can get me the most P.O.ed before November. The more I find out about McCain, the more sketchy he seems. I think that this opinion article is not only pretty much right on, but also contains another reminder of what I don't like about McCain--in particular, the fact that he used to stand up to people like Jerry Falwell, and is now palling around with them.

2. I found an article on Yahoo News with a little more insight about the National Journal rankings.

Conservatives claim Obama's positions place him out of sync with most Americans. They point to the National Journal's 2007 rating of him as the most liberal senator and intend to cite it in advertisements and fundraising appeals.

``It's an easy case to make that Barack Obama is both culturally and ideologically way out of the mainstream,'' said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.

The National Journal rated Obama's rival for the Democratic nomination, New York Senator Hillary Clinton, as the 16th most liberal, even though the analysis found the two lawmakers differed on just two ``key'' bills.

The magazine said Clinton, 60, voted against establishing a Senate office to handle ethics complaints, which Obama supported. Clinton also opposed a proposal, backed by Obama, that would allow some immigrants to remain in the U.S. while their visas were being renewed.

This PROVES that Obama is much more liberal than Clinton, because ethics reform is universally seen as a radical leftist move that only liberal elites would support... liberal elites like John McCain. And letting immigrants who possess visas and are in the process of getting them renewed remain in the country is just one step away from an open-border policy. Both of those positions are obviously "way out of the mainstream."

Of course, none of that will matter to most of the viewers of political ads who hear a quote from a self-proclaimed "independent" journal about how Obama is the most liberal member of the Senate.

10:46 pm: OK, Hillary Clinton, that's it...
Hillary Clinton has ties to a sketchy, creepy, cult-like group called The Family. Perhaps you've heard of it; I had read this article earlier. Basically, its main goal is power. It wants to use that power to destroy the separation of church and state. It considers Hitler and the Mafia role models (purely in terms of power acquisition, of course).

I only heard about her "Family Ties" in the last few days, in this article by Barbara Ehrenreich, but it was first reported in a Mother Jones article from September.

Unlikely partnerships have become a Clinton trademark. Some are symbolic, such as her support for a ban on flag burning with Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and funding for research on the dangers of video games with Brownback and Santorum. But Clinton has also joined the gop on legislation that redefines social justice issues in terms of conservative morality, such as an anti-human-trafficking law that withheld funding from groups working on the sex trade if they didn't condemn prostitution in the proper terms. With Santorum, Clinton co-sponsored the Workplace Religious Freedom Act; she didn't back off even after Republican senators such as Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter pulled their names from the bill citing concerns that the measure would protect those refusing to perform key aspects of their jobs—say, pharmacists who won't fill birth control prescriptions, or police officers who won't guard abortion clinics.

You'd think that as a Republican, Specter would be more conservative than a Democrat like Hillary Clinton--even if he's a "maverick" Republican. Well, on the other hand, as a Republican, maybe Specter felt he had to be more careful to show that he wasn't soft on terrorism. Because in my opinion, if you're a cop who's refusing to guard an abortion clinic because of your religious beliefs, you might as well just come out and say, "I support terrorism as long as it's in line with MY religion." And if you're supporting a bill that makes exemptions for people who support terrorism as long as they feel it benefits the goals of their religion, that implies that you support terrorism too, as long as it's in pursuit of the "right" goals.


The Mother Jones article also had a couple of interesting quotes that reminded me of some of the things I find most infuriating about Hillary Clinton:

Liberal rabbi Michael Lerner, whose "politics of meaning" Clinton made famous in a speech early in her White House tenure, sees the senator's ambivalence as both more and less than calculated opportunism. He believes she has genuine sympathy for liberal causes—rights for women, gays, immigrants—but often will not follow through. "There is something in her that pushes her toward caring about others, as long as there's no price to pay. But in politics, there is a price to pay."

Of course, no matter how much Clinton speaks of common ground, she doesn't stand a chance of winning votes among pro-lifers. As Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council, command central for Washington's Christian right, told us, movement conservatives consider legislation like Clinton's Putting Prevention First Act, which supports greater access to birth control and sex ed, "just another condom giveaway."

But the senator's project isn't the conversion of her adversaries; it's tempering their opposition so she can court a new generation of Clinton Republicans, values voters who have grown estranged from the Christian right. And while such crossover conservatives may never agree with her on the old litmus-test issues, there is an important, and broader, common ground—the kind of faith-based politics that, under the right circumstances, will permit majority morality to trump individual rights. The libertarian Cato Institute recently observed that Clinton is "adding the paternalistic agenda of the religious right to her old-fashioned liberal paternalism." Clinton suggests as much herself in her 1996 book, It Takes a Village, where she writes approvingly of religious groups' access to schools, lessons in Scripture, and "virtue" making a return to the classroom.

Personally, I'd consider the Cato Institute right-wing/libertarian rather than purely libertarian--it usually speaks out for libertarian causes that align with right-wing causes, but not ones that align with left-wing causes--but I think they hit the nail on the head with that quote. If Clinton is the nominee, her authoritarianism and her creepy association with The Family means I probably will be voting for McCain. Not that McCain doesn't have his own wacky spiritual connections, but at least--so far as I've heard--he's not fraternizing with The Family...

Oh, and by the way, Maine governor John Baldacci also has Family connections.

08:49 pm: McCain is a liar, and the National Journal probably is, too
McCain has a reputation for integrity and straight talk, but he's still a politician, and like others of his kind, he's not above distortions and lies. Here's an example that I personally found. It's not especially egregious, but the quote touches on another subject I'd like to discuss: the National Journal and its vote ratings.

“It’s not an accident that [Obama] has, I think, according to National Journal, the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate,” [McCain] said. “I have one of the most conservative.”

That second sentence is a lie. A lot of hardcore conservatives feel that John McCain is not conservative enough, and most people would agree that there are clearly other people in the Senate much more conservative than McCain--but these are matters of opinion and could be debated. What is not a matter of opinion is that, according to the very article that McCain just agreed was accurate about Obama as a standard, McCain's voting record is nowhere near the most conservative in the Senate:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. ... did not vote frequently enough in 2007 to draw a composite score.* He missed more than half of the votes in both the economic and foreign-policy categories. On social issues, which include immigration, McCain received a conservative score of 59.

You can also see here that although McCain's lifetime conservative rating is 71, it's been steadily declining, and in the last few years his overall conservative rating (not just his rating on social issues) has been around 59. (The liberal/conservative rating in any given year is based on comparing the senator's voting record on 99 "key votes" to those of other senators. A conservative rating of 59 means that McCain is more conservative than 59% of other senators.) Given that that rating includes Democrats as well as Republicans, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that his record is one of the most conservative.


In any case, though, I don't trust the rankings done by the National Journal. This is the second presidential election in a row that they've named a likely Democratic presidential nominee as the "most liberal" senator*. The liberal/conservative scores are based on "key votes", and they could select which votes are "key" in such a way as to manipulate scores--for example, they could eliminate otherwise-suitable votes from the list of "key" votes if Obama voted conservatively. In fact, nowhere in the original article do they disclose which votes were chosen as "key". For all I know, the numbers could be completely made up. But I suspect they would have gone the more subtle route of eliminating from consideration almost all the votes that Obama voted conservatively on--leaving in one conservative vote, "a Republican-sponsored resolution expressing the sense of Congress that funding should not be cut off for U.S. troops in harm's way", to make their strategy less obvious while still preserving the "most liberal" rank for Obama.

*I'm not too impressed by the fact that McCain missed more than half the votes in two of the National Journal's three categories--but if their methods for choosing "key votes" are as questionable as I suspect, this might not be as bad as it seems to be at first glance.

**In their defense, National Journal does seem to concede that its assessment of John Kerry as the "most liberal" senator was inaccurate: "Members who missed more than half of the votes in any of the three issue categories did not receive a composite score in NJ's ratings. (This rule was imposed after Kerry was ranked the most liberal senator in our 2003 ratings despite having missed more than half of the votes in two categories.)"

12:22 pm: Once again, the Republicans try to rewrite history

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was straightforward in expressing his support for McCain.

"I've had some disagreements with John McCain over the years, but he's my friend," McConnell said. "More importantly for this race, he's a conservative. And he has my full support.

"When Americans see what the liberals are offering this year, we'll win again," McConnell said, adding that eight years ago, Bush "showed the Clintons the door."

"With the help of you all, we're going to make sure they stay out," he said.

Did someone make Al Gore an honorary Clinton? If not, I think you need to replace "Bush" with the phrase "term limits", McConnell.

In the same article, it is reported that Bush was greeted with calls for "four more years" when he took to the stage. Maybe the crowd just doesn't know about term limits.

12:02 pm: Worst DNA Metaphor Ever, Part II
"When people see [Bill and Hillary Clinton] together, she suffers by comparison even if he says nothing," says Rutgers political scientist Ross Baker. "One of the things that the Iowa caucuses demonstrated is that the DNA of political genius is not easily spliced into someone else's genetics." (Quote from this article.)

Curse you, Ross Baker!

P.S. If you're going to insist on making dumb DNA analogies, at least get the terminology right: it should be "spliced into someone else's genes," not "spliced into someone else's genetics."

09:14 pm: Some people think that a couple big snowstorms (the snow from which is melting as I write this) in December and January are enough to suggest that global warming is not happening.

Jeff Jacoby thinks claims, in an article called "Br-r-r! Where did global warming go?" that 8 years in which the average global climate did not differ significantly from that of the hottest year on record suggests that very soon there will be a period of global cooling (and merits an article title implying that it's really, really cold). (Ironically, I got the info about the average global climate of the last 8 years from an article called "There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998".)

1998 was the all-time high for average global temperature. The hottest ever since we started measuring such things. All the years since have not been significantly colder. This is supposed to be evidence against global warming? Is that really the best that climate change skeptics can do?

In the same article, there are quotes from and links to some questionable science:

"Stock up on fur coats and felt boots!" advises Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and senior scientist at Moscow's Shirshov Institute of Oceanography. "The latest data . . . say that earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012."

Sorokhtin dismisses the conventional global warming theory that greenhouse gases, especially human-emitted carbon dioxide, is causing the earth to grow hotter. Like a number of other scientists, he points to solar activity - sunspots and solar flares, which wax and wane over time - as having the greatest effect on climate.

"Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change," Sorokhtin writes in an essay for Novosti. "Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind." In a recent paper for the Danish National Space Center, physicists Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen concur: "The sun . . . appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change," they write.

This could be the fault of poor wording/faulty translation, but Sorokhtin's quote, as written, indicates that he either thinks that people are claiming that the energy itself used by humans--rather than the carbon dioxide by-product--is what people hold responsible for global warming, doesn't know the difference between carbon dioxide and energy, or wants us to think that he means "carbon dioxide" and not "energy" so that he can make a statement that's technically not a lie but which is a non-sequitur, but sounds like a convincing argument against global warming.

The Dutch paper is a reply to another paper that says that the link between the climate and the solar cycle ended about 20 years ago. Their paper claims that although the surface temperature (the temperature reading used in the original study) is not linked to the solar cycle, the tropospheric air temperature and sub-surface ocean temperature still are. And then, because these temperature readings give them the link they're looking for and surface air temperatures don't, they believe they've found sufficient reason to reject surface air temperatures as a measure of the earth's climate.

When the response of the climate system to the solar cycle is apparent in the troposphere and ocean, but not in the global surface temperature, one can only wonder about the quality of the surface temperature record. For whatever reason, it is a poor guide to Sun-driven physical processes that are still plainly persistent in the climate system.

Isn't that called "cherry-picking data to find the result you're looking for"? I think I've also heard a saying something like, if you do a study looking for a result, you'll probably find it. I'm admittedly not a climate scientist, but I wonder why we would be more concerned with the troposphere and submarine temperatures than the temperatures in the part of the earth where we actually live. Maybe there's a reason why troposphere and ocean temperatures are less sensitive to the greenhouse effect and more sensitive to solar activity cycles than surface air temperatures, but I don't want to live under the sea--which is where some people's homes will end up if global warming continues. 

10:45 am: Stupid Coworker Tricks
The day after the Iowa primary, I was checking the news and noticed that Huckabee had won. I mentioned this to a coworker, with a bit of surprise at the outcome. Her response was "Oh, that's surprising; I thought that Obama would win." Me: "Obama is a Democrat." Her: "Oh, I thought it was all one election."

They cover this stuff in the news every four years. Granted, I follow politics more than a lot of people... but how can you be a citizen of this country and not know that?

10:44 am: Good news for Obama...
And not because of some new poll where he's ahead. Or at least, not that per se. According to this article, there's little to no Bradley effect any more.

But it seems unlikely that this time around there will be an "Obama effect." A report by the Pew Research Center, which matched the polls to the results for five black candidates in statewide races during the 2006 midterms, found that they were highly accurate. "Fewer people are making judgments about candidates based solely, or even mostly, on race itself," concluded the Pew report. This change in voting patterns enables black candidates to make substantial rather than symbolic runs for state or even national office and therefore lends different potential priorities to black political possibilities. But to be successful they have to nurture a different base and create a different coalition of interests than their predecessors did.

"The civil rights generation saw politics as the next step in the struggle for civil rights," explains Salim Muwakkil, senior editor of In These Times. "Their aim was to get their agenda taken up by whoever won. But this new generation do not conceive politics as the next step but just as what it is--politics. Their aim is to win."


Frankly, I think he's more electable (at least in the general election) than Clinton, who tops the list of people that Americans would vote against. Plus, he's taller. Bush is the only exception to the rule that the shorter candidate loses, and I won't rule out the possibility that he cheated.

On a side note, I can't help but wonder if the most lasting barrier women will face in politics is the fact that they're generally shorter than men.

09:58 am: What we've got to remember is we're all people of faith, not damn dirty atheists...
For those of you who care what Mitt Romney does, you probably already know that he's made a speech about his religion that's been compared to JFK's speech about being a Catholic. Except instead of saying that religious beliefs don't matter, because he's a 2007 Republican Romney emphasizes that his faith shares much in common with other faiths, especially other denominations of Christianity--and he finds time for some atheism- and secularism-bashing as well:

"Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

So I guess any European country where large numbers of people are either atheists or vaguely religious just doesn't know the meaning of freedom, eh? They're just as totalitarian as China!

And those fundamentalist Muslim countries that live under sharia law--such as Taliban-era Afghanistan--they were just pretending to be religious Muslims. Obviously, since religion requires freedom, they were really just atheists pretending to be Muslims to subjugate the populace. So are any Muslims in that bastion of freedom, our friend Saudi Arabia. Oh, and any persecuted religions in China, such as Tibetan Buddhism, are going to die out any minute now, since the Chinese/Tibetan people don't live in freedom.

Come on, Mitt. That statement doesn't hold up to a moment's scrutiny. It's not just an opinion that can't be proven or disproven. If you look at the countries in the world, both historically and in the present time, that have had religion but little if any freedom, your statement is demonstrably false. And the European countries that are least religious are not any less free than the more religious ones. I'll agree that freedom/lack of an official religion is good for religious sentiment, but the only examples where lack of religion goes with lack of freedom are Communist countries, and those countries are under the sway of a wacky version of Marx's ideology that is so dogmatic that it bears many features in common with religions. Dogma doesn't have to be religious to be poisonous.

"What he is trying to say is 'I am a person of faith. Forget the fact what my faith is, that I am a Mormon. You might be Christian. You might be Jewish. I'm a person of faith. I believe in God,' " Martin [a CNN contributor] said.

Sadly, I've seen this attitude before in many places. A significant number of the people who advocate religious tolerance either implicitly or explicitly say something to that effect--that your religious denomination doesn't matter because we really all worship the same God.

"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong."

Secularism is bad, mmkay? I suppose it depends on how you define "public"--for example, I have no problem with private business putting up Christmas displays for all to see, if that's what they want to do--but if he means removing religion from anything to do with our government, I'm on board with that. Government should represent all citizens, not just the monotheistic ones.

"Today's generations of Americans have always known religious liberty. Perhaps we forget the long and arduous path our nation's forbearers took to achieve it. They came here from England to seek freedom of religion. But upon finding it for themselves, they at first denied it to others. Because of their diverse beliefs, Ann Hutchinson was exiled from Massachusetts Bay, a banished Roger Williams founded Rhode Island, and two centuries later, Brigham Young set out for the West. Americans were unable to accommodate their commitment to their own faith with an appreciation for the convictions of others to different faiths. In this, they were very much like those of the European nations they had left."

So, Mitt, do you see any similarities between those who were only willing to go so far in religious tolerance and yourself, as your beliefs are expressed in this speech? Maybe especially those who were willing to tolerate other denominations of Christianity as long as they were fellow Protestants, but not those damn Mormons?

"And you can be certain of this: Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me."

And now Romney's implying that a "believer in religious freedom" is only someone who  "has knelt in prayer to the Almighty." Thanks for your narrow-minded speech, Mr. Romney. Even George W. Bush will give lip service to the right to not believe at all. I shouldn't have expected anything different from the guy who wants to double Guantanamo.

08:43 pm: Follow-up to the teddy bear incident
The BBC has put out a collection of quotes on Gillian Gibbons' release, which more strongly condemn the way that Gibbons was treated. The most strong condemnation comes from Inayat Bunglawala, who says that "Gillian should never have been arrested in the first place, let alone held in jail. She had done nothing wrong." That's the spirit!

05:20 pm: "In every way excessive"
A schoolteacher, Gillian Gibbons, was sentenced to 15 days in jail because she allowed her class to name a teddy bear Muhammed--apparently after the most popular boy in the class, not the Prophet Muhammed.

My first reaction was a bit of relief--at least they didn't try to give her a death sentence. I wonder what kind of conditions there are in Sudan's jails, but this could have been a lot worse. That's the pragmatist in me talking, anyway; I have pretty low expectations for Islamic-majority countries in general.  My second reaction was along the lines of, "It's abhorrent to me that any country would have bans on certain types of religion-related speech. I would never want to travel to a country like that."

But now people are rioting in the streets of Sudan, calling for Gibbons to be executed. Proving once again that the man on the street in most Muslim-majority countries thinks that criticism of his religion should be punishable by death--and moreover, that he is so paranoid that he will see criticism where none exists. (You'd think that anyone in Sudan would have more serious things to worry about.)

Unfortunate, but somewhat to be expected.

But then, on reading further, I discovered that the British government, Muslim organizations in Britain, and the U.S. government were calling the sentencing out of proportion to the crime--for example, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said "There is a shared assessment that the punishment that has been imposed on this woman is in every way excessive, even though it has been reduced."

Frankly, I'm disgusted with all of them. They all say that the punishment is excessive--in other words, they don't have a problem with there being a punishment, they just think that 15 days in jail is over the top. Maybe they'd be okay with a $100 fine. Frankly, I would have expected that from some of the moderate Muslim organizations, but I'm a little surprised to see it from the British government, and very surprised to see it from my own government. Surprised and disappointed. In fact, I think I'll write a letter to the U.S. State Department. In fact, I encourage you to do the same. Go to the very bottom of the State Department's website and click on "Contact Us" to do so.

Here's what I wrote; feel free to use any or all of my letter:
I read today that U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in response to Gillian Gibbons' 15-day sentence for blasphemy, "There is a shared assessment that the punishment that has been imposed on this woman is in every way excessive, even though it has been reduced." I think that this does not go far enough.

This comment (as well as comments by the British government) indicates that it is the harshness of the punishment that the U.S. government objects to. I object to the fact that there is any punishment at all. Even if Gibbons was intentionally insulting Islam, I do not believe that any type of discussion of any subject should be made illegal. At a time when we're supposedly trying to spread freedom around the world, this type of statement does not reflect the values that we are trying to spread.

12:14 pm: It's a dreadful omelette...
"If you want to make an omelette, you've got to crack some eggs. But you do also have to cook those eggs--which it does help if you have planned at least a basic omelette-cooking recipe in advance of cracking the eggs. And all they've done, particularly in Iraq, is jump up and down on the eggs and now they're wondering why the Iraqis want Muesli for breakfast.

--The Bugle

03:40 pm: I'm sick of radical skepticism
I'm also sick of people's obsession with philosophical certainty.

Up until the last couple of years, my impression of agnostics was that they were usually pretty unassuming and nonjudgmental. Then I kept seeing various versions of the following statement on the internet*:This is either a straw man (i.e. agnostics are trying to claim that atheists claim absolute certainty about God's nonexistence when they do not) or an insistence that other people phrase any statement about the existence of God(s) in a way that's compatible with radical skepticism. I have met (or seen commenting on the internet) few, if any, atheists who claim that one can be completely certain of whether God exists. But they do believe that there is no greater evidence for God's existence than for that of invisible pink unicorns, or Santa Claus, or of Bigfoot, UFOs or ghosts. And they see "I am an atheist" as a statement of what they believe to be the truth--defining "believe" in more or less the same sense as "I believe that the sun will come up tomorrow", i.e. I can't be any more certain of that than of any other fact about our world, but I have good reason to think it's the case. If anyone mentions that they're an atheist in the comments on some website, almost invariably someone else brings up the above agnostic argument and says that you can't prove a negative. But where are those same agnostics when someone says that there's no such thing as ghosts, or for that matter, that there are no WMDs in Iraq? And I don't see them rushing to the defense of Ahmedinejad when he says that the existence of the Holocaust is subject to doubt just like anything else. (It has been argued that any historical fact cannot be known, since we must rely on the word of others.) Since I was not a witness to the Holocaust, I can't prove that it happened. But the same agnostics who glorify their philosophical position with arguments borrowed from radical skepticism don't insist that I always express doubt when discussing the Holocaust. Basically, anyone who insists that you can never get off the fence about whether or not you believe in God(s) simply because you can never completely prove it is at best fixating on a technicality, in my opinion. In science, it's accepted that you can never prove anything with absolute certainty--you can only either provide supporting evidence for it, or disprove it. And yet agnostics don't freak out about people believing in Newton's Laws or the Theory of Relativity, or the fact that elephant seals are polygynous.

I've also noticed that agnostics tend to argue as though there's a complete vacuum of evidence about God(s)'s existence. There isn't. There is some evidence both ways and it takes various forms. I use the word "evidence" loosely, to include logical arguments as well as historical, scientific, anthropological, etc. evidence. No single piece of evidence conclusively shows that God(s) does or does not exist, but I believe that the balance of evidence overwhelming is against God(s)'s existence. Perhaps the most compelling evidence to me, and certainly the one that is closest to my heart, was first stated as the Riddle of Epicurus. (One can refute the Riddle of Epicurus by arguing that one need not assume that God is universally good, but since that rules out most religions' conception of God, that also negates much of the evidence that people cite for the existence of God.) I don't want to get into every single argument for or against here, since I'm sure that has been done more thoroughly elsewhere. The point is, there are many arguments for and against God(s)'s existence, and I accept that different people find the different arguments more or less compelling. And I have no problem with an agnostic saying that (s)he thinks that one side is not overwhelmingly convincing enough that people should be taking sides. What I do have a problem with is when agnostics say that atheists are making their decisions "on faith" and are being "irrational" because those statements are more difficult to refute. (I assume that most theists do not have a problem with having faith attributing to them, but do have a problem with their beliefs being described as "irrational". I think that the theists' arguments are wrong, but I acknowledge that I cannot prove that to be the case, and I would not simply dismiss them as irrational.)

How in the world can using logical arguments (like "the Christian God has logically  inconsistent qualities attributed to Him") to make your decision be described as "irrational"? Not agreeing with something doesn't make it irrational. In fact, being wrong doesn't make you irrational. It's definitely a stretch to say that anyone who is not a radical skeptic is irrational. Not only is it a stretch, in fact, but it is a violation of radical skepticism itself--for if you cannot be certain of anything, how can you be certain that radical skepticism itself is correct? And if you are not certain that radical skepticism is correct, how can you be certain that people who do not follow the radical skeptic philosophy are behaving irrationally? To tell other people how they've arrived at their decisions, and to be so sure of your explanation as to insist on it after these same people have told you that you're wrong, hardly seems consistent with radical skepticism to me.

I'm not saying that the agnostic position on God's existence is illogical or irrational, just that they shouldn't insist that anyone who has an opinion different from theirs is automatically "dishonest" or "irrational" or that others' opinions require "a leap of faith". They should be honest and acknowledge that their disagreement is on how convincing the evidence for and against God's existence is. They should not use a radical skeptic argument--one that they do not consistently apply--just because it is easier to claim that someone is irrational than to dispute particular pieces of evidence.

Frankly, I'm not sure why people are so obsessed with certainty. I admit that the radical skeptics have a point, that it's impossible to know anything with certainty. I'll admit that I don't know anything with certainty. But why is certainty so important? I long ago accepted that you cannot know anything with absolute certainty, but is there really any practical different between certainty and million-to-one odds? Let alone billion-to-one odds? Not that we can accurately calculate the odds of something being true anyway. (Richard Dawkins, who for better or worse now represents atheism to many people**, admits that he can't prove that we're not all living in a computer simulation and feels that when using belief in God(s) to categorize people it would be better to categorize them based on the probability they assign to God's existence. Yet agnostics will point to Richard Dawkins and say that his position requires just as much faith as any religious person's beliefs, and that agnosticism is obviously the best and most honest philosophical position. Sorry, agnostic-supremacists, but you're distorting Dawkins' statements and creating a straw man.)

I'm willing to recognize that whether God exists or not, absent conclusive proof, is an opinion or belief rather than a completely provable fact. But belief that God does not exist, as far as evidence goes, is more along the lines of belief that my dog loves me, or that animals feel pain, for example--unable to be truly proven, yet far from without basis in evidence. I'm wiling to recognize that one can't prove that animals feel pain, just as I'm willing to recognize that one can't prove that God exists, but do I spend a lot of time accounting for that possibility in my day-to-day life? And do I recognize that possibility on an emotional or "gut" level? The answer to both questions is No, and so I consider myself an atheist even though I recognize that I can't be absolutely certain that God doesn't exist. Besides, what difference does it make if God exists if the whole world appears exactly same as if He did not?

* Admittedly, the most vocal people on the internet also tend to be the most strident.

**At least he's better than Madalyn Murray O'Hair.

10:39 am: Pigs are flying and the weather in hell is decidedly nippy...
A news article/blog (being associated with a newspaper, it occupies a gray area...) where the comments are, on average, more well-thought-out than the original article!
Dawkins on the Power of the Jews

I have mixed feelings about Dawkins at best, and his phrasing could have been better ("have a disproportionate influence" would have been better than "monopolize"). Also, I'm not at all sure that atheists do outnumber religious Jews in the U.S. (It depends on how religious "religious" is--but self-identified atheists only make up about half a percent of the population, whereas "nonreligious" people make up about 10-15%. People whose religion is Jewish [right-wing/fundamentalist or otherwise] make up about 1.5% of the U.S.)

More importantly, the reason that the neocon/right-wing Israel lobby has disproportionate influence is because they're in bed with the Christian Fundamentalists, who believe that a Jewish homeland in Israel is necessary for the war in the Middle East that will bring about the End of Days and the Rapture. And I just can't see atheists gaining more influence on issues of importance to them by working with the Christian Fundamentalists.

In other words, Dawkins isn't very well-informed about the intricacies of religious politics in the U.S. Well, ignorance is bliss.

UPDATE: This blog entry describes where Dawkins goes wrong in more detail.

09:47 pm: I'm not sure if I should even post this*
I have just realized that being gay is, in fact, a choice.

Gays usually respond to the assertion that being gay is a choice by asking who would choose to be gay when gays are subject to so much prejudice in this country.

However, I think that being gay must have enough subversive appeal to them that it's worth the personal risks they take by being gay. What we need to do is persecute them more, so that the risks of persecution outweigh the thrill of undermining the sacred institution of marriage. And I know how much persecution would be sufficient. We just have to treat them the same way Iran would treat them. It worked for Iran: Iran does not have any homosexuals.
*for fear that it will be taken up as a serious argument by the religious right.

08:30 pm: Some perspective on wind turbines
I don't think that wind turbines are especially ugly, so I've never really been against them for that reason. I do realize that other people don't like them, and for some places (such as New England, where the fall foliage on the mountains is a draw) the perceived scenic beauty of the countryside can have economic value. But the following letter from the Bangor Daily News brings some perspective--if you think that wind turbines are bad for the scenery, consider the alternatives. It's a little histrionic at times, but it's definitely a wakeup call.

Energy wars

My family has lived in our beloved valley here in West Virginia for 10 generations. I’m a coal miner’s daughter and granddaughter.

There is an energy war going on here. We’re being bombed with three and a half million pounds of explosives every day. Up to 700 feet of mountaintops have been blasted from 400,000 acres of our mountains.

The deforestation worsens flooding and toxic coal waste sludge dams sit above our homes and schools.

Some children slept fully clothed and ready to run during rain events. Homes are damaged and covered in coal and silica dust. Residents can’t sit on their porches, some use respirators when they mow their lawns because of coal dust. Our water and air are poisoned daily. Our miners die, suffering from black lung and crushed bodies so Americans can have energy.

Both wildlife and human habitat is destroyed and poisoned.

Some dare to compare wind farms to mountaintop removal. Come to West Virginia and see the difference. We are fighting for wind here on our ridge, to save it from mountaintop removal. One person’s trash becomes another person’s treasure.

More wind and solar means less coal, kilowatt by kilowatt, until coal and nuclear plants are gone. The air coming out of a wind turbine is as clean as the air that went into it.

The wind dilemma is a class issue. We are poisoned for others’ conveniences. If your energy comes from coal, then it is covered in our blood and it should be dripping from our light switches. War is waged against us for energy, but yet some people don’t want to look at a wind turbine.

When you flip on that switch, remember who suffers. Take responsibility and fight for renewable energy. Your children’s lives depend on it. Visit www.ilovemountains.org.

Julia Bonds
Co-Director Coal River Mountain Watch
Rock Creek, W.Va.

10:01 pm: Suing God
I found this story interesting... I especially liked the fact that in the photo chosen for this story, Chamber's head appears to be framed in a halo (which is actually an electric fan). And I would note in response to "God" that while wars are attributable to free will, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. are more often than not beyond our ability to control. (The fact that God doesn't step in to stop genocide or torture because he apparently believes that the killers' free will and their ability to carry out their free will is more important than giving the victims the ability to avoid being killed is something that I will not get into any further than I just did on this particular post.)

I initially thought when I read this story, "This guy chose a pretty clever and amusing lawsuit to make, and he certainly has a point about frivolous lawsuits." Then I found out what lawsuit he was protesting. The victim of an alleged rape was ordered by a judge not to use words such as "rape", "sexual assault", "sexual assault kit", etc., and was suing to be able to use those words. It's clear to me that, even to someone who might agree with the judge's decision, this is not a frivolous lawsuit. What the hell is wrong with you, Sen. Chambers? You're making other nonbelievers look bad.