You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen..

NYT: Bloomberg Donating to Planned Parenthood After Komen Cuts

2012-02-02T21:11:00.001-08:00

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=906316&f=19

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, responding to the controversy over a breast cancer advocacy group that cut off most of its grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening, said Thursday that he would make up a large part of the missing money.

Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire with a long-term interest in public health, said he would give Planned Parenthood Federation of America a $250,000 matching gift -- he will donate $1 for every new dollar Planned Parenthood raises up to $250,000.

---SPSmith

SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK: Justice Ginsburg takes tips on democracy to sites of Arab uprisings - The Washington Post

2012-02-02T21:09:00.001-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts-law/supreme-court-notebook-justice-ginsburg-takes-tips-on-democracy-to-sites-of-arab-uprisings/2012/02/02/gIQAwSyhjQ_story.html

O'Connor said that of the two leading Republican candidates, "one is a
practicing polygamist, and he's not even the Mormon."

---SPSmith

The Fireplace Delusion : Sam Harris

2012-02-02T19:43:00.001-08:00

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-fireplace-delusion

---SPSmith

Trust and Betrayal in the Medical Marketplace

2012-02-02T16:05:00.001-08:00

http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1724&context=facpub&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Dmedical%2520care%2520ken%2520arrow%2520epstein%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D3%26ved%3D0CD8QFjAC%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fscholarship.law.georgetown.edu%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%253D1724%2526context%253Dfacpub%26ei%3DlyArT7fHJpPg2wX9j7TtDg%26usg%3DAFQjCNFV9XJPfjvuqhXiJnw3_wA46fC2Sw%26sig2%3D3Fa_3m6ABgW4lVAdDAtxzQ#search=%22medical%20care%20ken%20arrow%20epstein%22

---SPSmith

Check out: 'The Secret of American Health Care' on Slate

2012-02-02T15:25:00.001-08:00

I thought you might find this Slate article interesting:

The Secret of American Health Care
By Darshak Sanghavi
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2012/01/american_health_care_is_already_socialized_.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad

---SPSmith

Article: Climate science discussion between Burt Rutan and Brian Angliss | Scholars and Rogues

2012-02-02T10:20:00.001-08:00

Climate science discussion between Burt Rutan and Brian Angliss | Scholars and Rogues
http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2012/01/31/climate-science-discussion-between-burt-rutan-and-brian-angliss/

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

Daily Kos: Komen supporters jumping ship on Guidestar.org

2012-02-02T08:56:00.001-08:00

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/02/1060974/-Komen-supporters-jumping-ship-on-Guidestarorg

---SPSmith

20080221_BookReviewLevy.pdf

2012-02-02T08:38:00.001-08:00

http://www.fed-soc.org/doclib/20080221_BookReviewLevy.pdf

Volume 1 of the trilogy, Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995), established the principles: self-ownership or autonomy, first possession, voluntary exchange, and pro- tection against aggression. Those mandates could be breached only in carefully defined and narrow circumstances - like private emergencies or public necessity - and then only with compensation to aggrieved parties.

Volume 2, Principles for a Free Society: Reconcil- ing Individual Liberty with the Common Good (1998), em- braced a mostly laissez-faire government, relying on social norms and customs, delineating private and common prop- erty rights in water and telecommunications, and promoting private altruism over public redistributionism. Epstein's foun- dation was natural law, but defended on consequentialist rather than deontological or self-evident grounds.

InVolume3,whileacknowledgingthathisintellec- tual path over the decades has led him to endorse a some- what enlarged role for the state, Epstein nonetheless rein- forces his case for libertarian fundamentals accompanied by a limited set of forced exchanges. His dual goals: first, to defend classical liberalism against skeptics who posit that "no moral judgment about the shape of political institutions is better than any other"; and second, to address the main objection of some psychologists and behavioral economists - that humans are not entirely rational, and the assumption of homo economicus is too sweeping to justify the classical liberal exaltation of private ordering.

---SPSmith

SKEPTICISM AND FREEDOM: A MODERN CASE FOR CLASSICAL LIBERALISM

2012-02-02T08:25:00.001-08:00

http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/Epstein1003.htm
Epstein's writings about property, contract, and limited government
invite the reader not only to consider what he has explicitly written,
but also to wonder about what has been omitted. Epstein's Hound of the
Baskervilles – the dog who does not bark – is power, and its many
manifestations are missing, with the exception of state power.
However, there is a rich political-theoretical position, from
Aristotle through Machiavelli through the present, that sees power at
the heart of politics, that power takes many forms, that power is
lodged in the state, society, and the economy, and that different
expressions of power can be enabling or disabling. Such an approach
recognizes there are dangers in a theory which only sees the state as
the holder of power or considers only the state as dangerous. Such an
approach invites us to assume everything we find in civil society to
be benign. This is something that should be crucially important to
someone who professes to want to protect liberty and autonomy, matters
that the author signals as his driving concerns early in his book.
Richard Epstein has written a provocative book that promotes classical
liberalism and that will delight and fortify its adherents, while
troubling and disappointing its detractors.

---SPSmith

USA TODAY: Column: Sudan and Congo savaged as world shrugs

2012-02-02T07:33:00.001-08:00

Check out this article that I saw in USA TODAY's iPad application.

Column: Sudan and Congo savaged as world shrugs
http://usat.ly/yVpEhT

To view the story, click the link or paste it into your browser.

To learn more about USA TODAY for iPad and download, visit:
http://usatoday.com/ipad/

---SPSmith

Rand's Quotations

2012-02-01T14:42:00.001-08:00

http://www.ashep.com/archive/loQtus/rand.html

---SPSmith

Article: Big Charity

2012-02-01T13:04:00.001-08:00

Big Charity
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/02/big_charity.php

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

WSJ publishes actual climate scientists' letter on climate science - Boing Boing

2012-02-01T11:42:00.000-08:00

WSJ publishes actual climate scientists' letter on climate science - Boing Boing: "Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.

You published "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology."

'via Blog this'

2012-02-01T10:14:00.001-08:00

'via Blog this'

Komen Foundation Exploits Breast Cancer Mission to Make War on Planned Parenthood | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet

2012-02-01T10:14:00.000-08:00

Komen Foundation Exploits Breast Cancer Mission to Make War on Planned Parenthood | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet: "A large share of the clients served at Planned Parenthood clinics are low-income African-American and Latina women. The National Cancer Institute identifies lack of access to early and effective screening for breast cancer (and hence lack of early treatment) as a primary reason that African American and Latina women die of breast cancer at higher rates than the general population. In fact, Komen itself recognized these links in a 2011 statement on its relationship with Planned Parenthood:

While Komen Affiliates provide funds to pay for screening, education and treatment programs in dozens of communities, in some areas, the only place that poor, uninsured or under-insured women can receive these services are through programs run by Planned Parenthood.

But Komen's support has now been withdrawn"

'via Blog this'

Let’s Keep New Atheism Strident « Choice in Dying

2012-02-01T09:44:00.000-08:00

Let’s Keep New Atheism Strident « Choice in Dying:

'via Blog this'

The pope and many other Christians, of course, don’t really believe in evolution at all, because they believe that, at some point in the development of life, god directly intervened and created a being with a soul, namely, us. This ontological saltation, of course, is not a part of the theory, but an addition that simply makes a nonsense of the theory. In order to create intelligent, rational beings, who had a ghostly kind of free will, god had to intervene directly in the process, and, as a result, an entirely new order of being was created. This is not supported by the scientific evidence. It is a theological presupposition — made up stuff! The evidence is quite clear. Human beings are animals, like all the other animals on earth, and like them, human beings are related to all of life, including plants and bacteria, amoebae, and even more primitive forms of life. There is no ontological jump from animals to human beings. Given the theory of evolution, there is simply no reason to believe such a thing. We can trace our lineage back to a common ancestor of gorillas and chimps, and further back to the beginning of life, to one-celled creatures just beginning their billions of years’ long journey to the amazing diversity we see in the world around us, including ourselves.

Even on this theological supposition, what are we to do with the billions of years of suffering of so many animals that have come to be and then lost the evolutionary fight, and were replaced by more successful forms of life? Billions of years of meaningless, pointless suffering, with no one around to respond with awe and wonder, as human beings can. It is simply intolerable to believe that there is a god who used this method for creating us, for bringing us into being. It is a completely mechanistic, algorithmic process, set in motion billions of years ago, and just by chance, happened upon beings like us who can think about the universe and our surroundings, and find it full of things at which we can wonder, and consider with awe. The entire reason for the stridency of the new atheism lies right there. There is no reason to believe a god necessary for the production of this evolutionary process, and any god that was responsible for it would have to be a monster.

The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912)

2012-02-01T08:15:00.001-08:00

http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/Summaries/forms.html
Hence Durkheim's definition: " A religion is a unified system of
beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say,
things set apart and forbidden -- beliefs and practices which unite
into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere
to them."

---SPSmith

Article: Greta Christina's Blog: The Armor of God, or, The Top One Reason Religion Is Harmful

2012-02-01T07:29:00.001-08:00

Greta Christina's Blog: The Armor of God, or, The Top One Reason Religion Is Harmful
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2009/11/armor-of-god.html

Religion is ultimately dependent on belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die.

It therefore has no reality check.

And it is therefore uniquely armored against criticism, questioning, and self- correction. It is uniquely armored against anything that might stop it from spinning into extreme absurdity, extreme denial of reality... and extreme, grotesque immorality.

---SPSmith

Article: HP Paid Intel $690 Million To Keep Itanium On Life Support

2012-02-01T07:24:00.001-08:00

HP Paid Intel $690 Million To Keep Itanium On Life Support
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/02/hp-itanium/

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

Congressional Budget Office - The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2012 to 2022

2012-01-31T21:23:00.001-08:00

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12699

---SPSmith

New Identified Research Reveals Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies - Identified

2012-01-31T21:14:00.001-08:00

http://blog.identified.com/2012/01/new-identified-research-reveals-engineers-far-more-likely-than-mbas-to-build-and-run-companies.html

---SPSmith

Article: Actual Scientists Respond to Fake Scientists at Wall Street Journal

2012-01-31T21:12:00.001-08:00

Actual Scientists Respond to Fake Scientists at Wall Street Journal
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/01/actual_scientists_respond_to_f.php

---SPSmith

Article: The 11 Best Psychology and Philosophy Books of 2011

2012-01-31T19:11:00.001-08:00

The 11 Best Psychology and Philosophy Books of 2011
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/12/22/best-psychology-and-philosophy-books-of-2011/

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

Article: Florida Republican primary results – live

2012-01-31T19:05:00.001-08:00

Florida Republican primary results – live
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/31/florida-republican-primary-results-live

8.43pm: "I will make America the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs," says Mitt Romney. So, perhaps he will be able to move all his off-shore investments from the Cayman Islands back to the US? There's an economic stimulus for America right there.

---SPSmith

Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice - Yahoo! News

2012-01-31T15:03:00.001-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/low-iq-conservative-beliefs-linked-prejudice-180403506.html

Nonetheless, there is reason to believe that strict right-wing ideology might appeal to those who have trouble grasping the complexity of the world.

"Socially conservative ideologies tend to offer structure and order," Hodson said, explaining why these beliefs might draw those with low intelligence. "Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice."

---SPSmith

Leonard Cohen, With a New Album, ‘Old Ideas,’ Was Never Popular But Always Profound – Tablet Magazine

2012-01-31T12:57:00.001-08:00

http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/music/89715/leonard/
To go to a Doors concert was to stare at the lithe messiah undressing
on stage and believe that it was entirely possible to break on through
to the other side. To see Cohen play was to gawk at an aging Jew
telling you that life was hard and laced with sorrow but that if we
love each other and fuck one another and have the mad courage to laugh
even when the sun is clearly setting, we'll be just all right.

---SPSmith

NeuroTribes

2012-01-31T12:32:00.001-08:00

http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/

There's also a cheeky irreverence to the tone of the essays — many of
which originated in the blogosphere — that is utterly refreshing. I
can't think of another book on the subject that would include the
statement, "Children with autism are well known for masturbating in
public. (And who can blame them?)"

---SPSmith

Why the secular state has no moral mandate – Opinion – ABC Religion & Ethics (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

2012-01-31T07:48:00.001-08:00

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/01/25/3415283.htm

Thus, Locke proposed a functional separation of religion and the apparatus of the state. The state should act for entirely secular reasons, based on knowledge that pertains solely to the order of this world. It should place no reliance on the doctrines of one or another religion. The different religious sects, cults and churches, in turn, should not pursue political power or influence in an attempt to impose their doctrines on the citizenry.

History has been kind to Locke, and I suggest that the model he put forward is plausible, independently of the urgent need for seventeenth-century religious rivals to find a modus vivendi. His arguments are deeper than that, and more principled.

---SPSmith

Book Review: Coming Apart by Charles Murray - Businessweek

2012-01-31T07:32:00.001-08:00

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/book-review-coming-apart-by-charles-murray-01192012.html

Charles Murray, the conservative sociologist, has written an incisive,
alarming, and hugely frustrating book about the state of American
society. No sense withholding the punchline: He thinks we're in
decline. The American rich are living cloistered and isolated lives,
depriving the mainstream of their fraternity, their wisdom, and their
skills. A growing number at the other end of the socioeconomic
spectrum are dropping out in another respect—abandoning work, family,
and community. At risk is what Murray affectionately terms the
"American project." To Murray, the key to self-government is the
modifier "self"; American democracy, he says, can never be stronger
than the cumulative strength of character of its individual selves. A
government whose citizens lack what Murray terms "the founding
virtues"—virtue being one of the unfashionable terms that Murray
reclaims with delight—might as well be a dictatorship. It will lack
participatory vigor, civic energy, and a sense of inclusion, without
which even the Constitution becomes a dead letter.
---SPSmith

Check out: 'Is Polygamy Really So Awful?' on Slate

2012-01-31T07:10:00.001-08:00

I thought you might find this Slate article interesting:

Is Polygamy Really So Awful?
By Libby Copeland
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/01/the_problem_with_polygamy.html?wpisrc=sl_ipad

---SPSmith

Why Atheism Will Replace Religion | Psychology Today

2012-01-30T21:22:00.001-08:00

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/201005/why-atheism-will-replace-religion

The question of why economically developed countries turn to atheism has been batted around by anthropologists for about eighty years. Anthropologist James Fraser proposed that scientific prediction and control of nature supplants religion as a means of controlling uncertainty in our lives. This hunch is supported by data showing that the more educated countries have higher levels of non belief and there are strong correlations between atheism and intelligence (see my earlier post on this).
---SPSmith

7 Signs the Corporatocracy is Losing its Legitimacy--and 7 Tools to Help Shut it Down | | AlterNet

2012-01-30T19:50:00.001-08:00

http://www.alternet.org/story/153933/7_signs_the_corporatocracy_is_losing_its_legitimacy--and_7_tools_to_help_shut_it_down?page=entire

Powerful corporations socialize their risks and costs, but privatize
profits. That means we, the 99 percent, pick up the tab for
environmental clean ups, for helping workers who aren't paid enough to
afford food or health care, for bailouts when risky speculation goes
wrong. Meanwhile, profits go straight into the pockets of top
executives and others in the 1 percent.

---SPSmith

Do Ask, Do Tell : OutSmart Magazine

2012-01-30T19:47:00.001-08:00

http://outsmartmagazine.com/2012/01/do-ask-do-tell/?doing_wp_cron

Susan Bankston: Do you believe that Rick Perry is gay?
Glen Maxey: Throughout this story, I've been careful to refer to
Perry's activities as homosexual or same-sex, never "gay." That's
because as far as I'm concerned, Rick Perry isn't gay. He's a man who
has sexual encounters with other men. Those men predominantly identify
themselves as gay. But Rick Perry is not, as far as I am concerned,
gay.
---SPSmith

The Quiet Coup - Magazine - The Atlantic

2012-01-30T19:45:00.001-08:00

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/7364/?single_page=true

---SPSmith

Federal budget Outlays by Detailed Function

2012-01-30T19:12:00.001-08:00

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0473.pdf

---SPSmith

The 2012 Statistical Abstract: Foreign Aid

2012-01-30T18:56:00.001-08:00

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/foreign_commerce_aid/foreign_aid.html

---SPSmith

mermin_moon

2012-01-30T12:51:00.001-08:00

http://www.iafe.uba.ar/e2e/phys230/history/moon.pdf

If the data in such an experiment are in agreement with the numerical predictions of the quantum theory, then Einstein's philosophical position has to be wrong.

---SPSmith

New Theory Explains How Objective Reality Emerges from the Strange Underlying Quantum World | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network

2012-01-30T12:39:00.001-08:00

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/12/05/new-theory-explains-how-objective-reality-emerges-from-the-strange-underlying-quantum-world/

Quantum theory is one of the most profound discoveries of humanity. In
my view, it's on a par with Cuban cigars and single malt whiskey

---SPSmith

Article: THOMAS FRANK PITIES THE BILLIONAIRE

2012-01-30T08:03:00.001-08:00

THOMAS FRANK PITIES THE BILLIONAIRE
http://irresistibletargets.blogspot.com/2012/01/thomas-frank-pities-billionaire.html

if you believe in fantasy, you need a bogey man when reality hits you in the face

---SPSmith

Does Religion Cause Rape? « MoronWatch

2012-01-29T15:19:00.001-08:00

http://moronwatch.net/2012/01/does-religion-cause-rape.html

---SPSmith

Francis Fukuyama on the Financial Crisis | FiveBooks | The Browser

2012-01-27T12:50:00.001-08:00

http://thebrowser.com/interviews/francis-fukuyama-on-financial-crisis?page=3

But if authoritarian states need more accountability, you can make the case that democratic political systems have been paralysed by the multiplication of checks and balances over time. That really creates a situation of what I call "vetocracy". There are no forcing mechanisms to make the polity take a difficult choice, but there is enough participation that everybody can block things that they don't like. In the US we have a particularly severe form of this because our constitution mandates many more checks and balances and many more vetoes in political decision-making than do the constitutions and basic laws of other societies. The economist Mancur Olson was right, I think, that over long periods of peace and prosperity, the vested interests that take advantage of this kind of political system tend to multiply. So I would relate our current problem to a bad institutional set of rules.

---SPSmith

Home : Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

2012-01-27T12:33:00.001-08:00

http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/fcic/20110310172443/http://fcic.gov/

---SPSmith

Neil deGrasse Tyson Sympathizes With Newt Gingrich's Moon Mission | Mediaite

2012-01-27T11:59:00.000-08:00

Neil deGrasse Tyson Sympathizes With Newt Gingrich's Moon Mission | Mediaite: " “If the nation dreams big and that percolates its way through society, the dreams are enabled by prowess in science. Once everybody gets the feeling through them, they want to become scientists and engineers and participate in this adventure,” Tyson exclaimed. “Scientists and engineers — who are the seeds of tomorrow’s economies in this competitive 21st century we’re entering.”"

'via Blog this'

Article: ARIZONA ATHEIST: The Bible: An Exposé: Myth or History?

2012-01-27T07:48:00.001-08:00

ARIZONA ATHEIST: The Bible: An Exposé: Myth or History?
http://arizonaatheist.blogspot.com/2012/01/bible-expose-myth-or-history.html

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

Article: The 10 Most Brazen Lies Offered By the Remaining GOP Presidential Hopefuls

2012-01-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

The 10 Most Brazen Lies Offered By the Remaining GOP Presidential Hopefuls
http://www.alternet.org/story/153911/

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

Dole assails Gingrich in plea to conservatives – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

2012-01-26T17:31:00.000-08:00

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/26/dole-assails-gingrich-in-plea-to-conservatives/

"If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices," Dole said. "Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway."

Dole, who served in the U.S. Senate when Gingrich was House speaker, harkened back to Gingrich's style during his time in Congress.

"Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall," Dole said. "He loved picking a fight with Bill Clinton because he knew this would get the attention of the press. This and a myriad of other specifics helped to topple Gingrich in 1998."

---SPSmith

Molalla City Council Agenda—Page 2 of 2

2012-01-26T16:44:00.001-08:00

http://www.cityofmolalla.com/vertical/Sites/%7B8B732F6F-BF3A-4831-820E-E60E2A3E5AA4%7D/uploads/Agenda_and_Packet_January_20_2012_REV.pdf

Jim Needham: ass where ever he goes:

Councilor Needham made a motion to table this item.

CM Barnes stated that there is already a motion on the table.

Councilor Needham stated that a motion to table is always in order.

Councilor Rogge stated that he has to have a second.

Mayor Clarke stated that beings that there is no second he will go back to the original motion and second that we adopt the Council Rules as they are.

Motion approved (5-1) Mayor Mike Clarke, Aye; Councilor Clark, Aye; Councilor Needham, Nay; Councilor Rogge, Aye; Councilor Thompson, Aye; Councilor Wolfe, Aye.

Councilor Needham stated that he can't believe this; this is a total mockery.

---SPSmith

Article: 'Headless body in topless bar' convict denied parole

2012-01-26T12:06:00.001-08:00

'Headless body in topless bar' convict denied parole
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2012/01/headless-body-in-topless-bar-convict-denied-parole.html

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

Inside SAP's Skunkworks as It Takes Aim at Oracle - WSJ.com

2012-01-26T08:45:00.001-08:00

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203430404577092651330963684-lMyQjAxMTAyMDIwNTEyNDUyWj.html

---SPSmith

Article: Atheism as Lacking a Moral Foundation

2012-01-26T08:05:00.001-08:00

Atheism as Lacking a Moral Foundation
http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2012/01/atheism-as-lacking-moral-foundation.html

In America, it casts atheists as untrustworthy, as least likely to share American values, and as being likely to establish a Stalinesque totalitarian regime complete with programs to round up and execute all believers if it should come to pass that atheists get political power.

This type if attitude deserves more that, "Pardon me, but i do not think that reason and evidence properly supports the conclusions you are asserting."

It deserves, "If your fraking religion grants you such a strong moral foundation, why didn't it teach you about the evil of promoting hatred and fear of others for the purpose of harvesting social and political power? Where is that in your moral code and why don't you start practicing it?"

---SPSmith

Article: Religious tolerance

2012-01-26T08:00:00.001-08:00

Religious tolerance
http://freethoughtblogs.com/crommunist/2012/01/26/religious-tolerance/

---SPSmith

Article: Good Minus God: The Moral Atheist - NYTimes.com

2012-01-25T21:22:00.001-08:00

Good Minus God: The Moral Atheist - NYTimes.com
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/good-minus-god/

Rather, we find moral value to be immanent in the natural world, arising from the vulnerabilities of sentient beings and from the capacities of rational beings to recognize and to respond to those vulnerabilities and capacities in others.

---SPSmith

Poll Results | IGM Forum

2012-01-25T16:10:00.001-08:00

http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_0IAlhdDH2FoRDrm

One of the leading reasons for rising U.S. income inequality over the past three decades is that technological change has affected workers with some skill sets differently than others.

---SPSmith

Article: State of the Republicans

2012-01-25T10:58:00.001-08:00

State of the Republicans
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/state-of-the-republicans/

Funny

---SPSmith

Article: State of the Republicans

2012-01-25T10:52:00.001-08:00

State of the Republicans
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/state-of-the-republicans/

it's an odd thing when a leading Republican candidate has the children of his first wife attacking his second wife for things she said about his third wife and this candidate is the one getting social conservative support.

---SPSmith

Skeptic Money » Blog Archive » Do Atheists Know More About Religion? – Pew Forum Study. - You make sense but does your money?

2012-01-25T10:15:00.001-08:00

http://www.skepticmoney.com/do-atheists-know-more-about-religion-pew-forum-study/

---SPSmith

Emrys Westacott, The Virtues of Our Vices: tA Modest Defense of Gossip, Rudeness, and Other Bad Habits

2012-01-25T09:58:00.001-08:00

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9522.pdf

Morality, in my view, is not some special nonnatural domain. it is a human invention, although as a number of recent studies in evolutionary ethics have suggested, it probably has its roots in our evolutionary heritage. For the most part, moral systems were not consciously designed with particular ends in mind; they emerged naturally, and those that helped their societies to thrive tended to be selected in. Within recorded history, moral revolutionaries like Moses, the Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, and Muhammad sought more or less consciously to construct new ethical systems. They did so with certain goals in mind, and in most cases viewed the moral rules they proposed as reflecting a divine will. This divine sanction justified viewing the rules as objectively correct; it also provided people with a motive to abide by them.

The enlightenment secularized our view of morality but sought to uphold the objective status and binding force of moral principles by seeing them as dictates of reason rather than divine commandments. since the eighteenth century the secularization of our culture has proceeded apace, and this has made possible a more relativistic view of reason and a more flexible conception of morality. of course, there are plenty of religious believers who still think that the moral precepts they favor express God's will. The more traditional among them even hold that we have a duty to make our society mirror some divinely ordained ideal. But a thoroughly secular approach sees things differently. Morality is a tool. it is a set of values, beliefs, principles, practices, and ideals that we use to help promote certain personal and social goals. naturally, people can and do sometimes disagree over what these goals should be. Fascists will sacrifice individual rights to achieve a certain kind of political state; liberals see the state as serving to guarantee basic individual rights. some people posit ideals of nonviolence and brotherly love; others value rugged individualism and the frontier spirit. But wherever there is com mon ground, there is room for reasoned discussion, and we can entertain some hope that, in the long term, people's fundamental values will tend to converge.

-- Emrys Westacott, The Virtues of Our Vices: tA Modest Defense of Gossip, Rudeness, and Other Bad Habits

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9522.pdf

---SPSmith

Skepticblog » Rescuing People from Aliens

2012-01-25T09:00:00.001-08:00

http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/01/24/rescuing-people-from-aliens/#more-16555

---SPSmith

10 Misconceptions Rundown

2012-01-25T08:53:00.001-08:00

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCzXZfNIu3A&feature=youtube_gdata_player

---SPSmith

Apple Hits Sales, Profits Record « VOA Breaking News

2012-01-25T08:25:00.001-08:00

http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/01/25/apple-hits-sales-profits-record/
Apple's profit exceeded the total revenue for the quarter of the
popular Internet search firm Google.

---SPSmith

Nov2011: Nasal Packing With Strips of Cured Pork as Treatment for Uncontrollable Epistaxis in a Patient With Glanzmann Thrombasthenia

2012-01-24T21:23:00.001-08:00

http://www.annals.com/toc/auto_abstract.php?id=15789

Title:

Nasal Packing With Strips of Cured Pork as Treatment for Uncontrollable Epistaxis in a Patient With Glanzmann Thrombasthenia

---SPSmith

Article: CrownHeights.info » Christopher Hitchens: The Fall of a Worthy Adversary

2012-01-24T15:23:00.001-08:00

CrownHeights.info » Christopher Hitchens: The Fall of a Worthy Adversary
http://www.crownheights.info/index.php?itemid=39953

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

Energy Report - Government Financial Subsidies

2012-01-24T10:58:00.001-08:00

http://www.window.state.tx.us/specialrpt/energy/subsidies/

The price of your soul: How the brain decides whether to 'sell out'

2012-01-24T08:39:00.001-08:00

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-price-soul-brain.html

---SPSmith

Seeking the neurological roots of conflict - MIT News Office

2012-01-24T08:36:00.001-08:00

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/empathy-conflict-0123.html

---SPSmith

Man Wants to Live Like Bear Grylls for a Year, Dies in Less than a Month | Oddity Central - Collecting Oddities

2012-01-24T08:05:00.001-08:00

http://www.odditycentral.com/news/man-wants-to-live-like-bear-grylls-for-a-year-dies-in-less-than-a-month.html

---SPSmith

Left/right differences

2012-01-24T07:49:00.001-08:00

The political left rolls with the good and the political right confronts the bad: connecting physiology and cognition to preferences
Dodd, et. al., Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 5 March 2012 vol. 367 no. 1589 640-649.
... the central message of these findings is not that one political orientation is somehow superior to the other but rather that, in light of the connection between location on the political spectrum and physio-cognitive differences, those on the political right and those on the political left may simply experience the world differently. It is probably because of these differences that some on the right view those on the left as hedonists who ignore pressing issues while some on the left view those on the right as doomsayers who obsess over constructed threats and problems.

Full paper for review: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/367/1589/640.full

---SPSmith

Against relativism: cultural diversity and the search for ethical universals ... - Ruth Macklin - Google Books

2012-01-23T18:41:00.001-08:00

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=BajHzj0Di8AC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=Ruth+Benedict+common+denominator+religion&ots=HV1XwcQG2Q&sig=_PEvZvWNJ2pMrc8IkMwVQNeaRk0#v=onepage&q&f=false

---SPSmith

Jonathan Haidt and the Moral Matrix: Breaking Out of Our Righteous Minds | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network

2012-01-23T18:36:00.001-08:00

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/12/08/jonathan-haidt-the-moral-matrix-breaking-out-of-our-righteous-minds/

---SPSmith

Richard Dawkins & Steven Pinker: Is Science Killing The Soul - Page 8

2012-01-23T18:07:00.001-08:00

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dawkins_pinker/debate_p8.html

That may also be true, at least according to some philosophical
arguments, for morality. Many philosophers believe that some abstract
entities, such as numbers, have an existence independent of minds.
That is, many philosophers and mathematicians believe that the number
three is not just a figment in the way that the color red is, but that
it has a real existence, which mathematicians discover and explore
with their mathematical faculties; they don't invent it. Similarly,
many moral philosophers argue that right and wrong have an existence,
and that our moral sense evolved to mesh with them. Even if you don't
believe that, there's an alternative that would make the moral sense
just as real -- namely, that our universal moral sense is constituted
so that it can't work unless we believe that right and wrong have an
external reality. So if you want to stop short of saying that moral
truths exist outside us, you can say that we can't reason other than
by assuming that they do. In that case, when we get down to having a
moral debate, we still appeal to external standards of right and
wrong; we aren't reduced to comparing idiosyncratic emotional or
subjective reactions.

---SPSmith

Article: Theism, Atheism, and Blame

2012-01-23T15:45:00.001-08:00

Theism, Atheism, and Blame
http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2011/12/theism-atheism-and-blame.html

If you take "atheism" and its counter-part "theism" NEITHER of these are a source of violence or evil. You cannot draw any moral implications from the statement, "It is not the case that at least one God exists" just as you cannot draw any moral implication from the statement, "It is the case that at least one God exists." They are both behaviorally, morally, and practically impotent.

In order to get to any moral conclusion – any type at all – you have to add something to your fundamental premise, regardless of whether it is atheist or theist.

In order to get violence against homosexuals, you have to combine, "At least one God exists" with "That god commands that homosexuals be put to death" and "We all have to duty to do that which God commands." Then, you can get behavior worthy of condemnation.

However, on this level, the same reasoning applies to atheism. In order to get any form of behavior – any type at all – out of atheism you have to add something to your fundamental premise. We might add, "Man is a rational animal, and it is irrational to provide help to others unless one expects a sufficient profit in return that more than compensates the cost of the help. Therefore, man ought not to help others. Selfishness is a virtue."

---SPSmith

Article: Theism, Atheism, and Blame

2012-01-23T15:44:00.001-08:00

Theism, Atheism, and Blame
http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2011/12/theism-atheism-and-blame.html

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

Article: Why I despise the Catholic Church especially

2012-01-23T15:17:00.001-08:00

Why I despise the Catholic Church especially
http://furtherthoughtsfortheday.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-i-despise-catholic-church.html

I know that it is not a prerequisite of becoming a Catholic clergyman to be a peadophile, and that, of the clergy the vast majority are not peadophiles (just under 10% of ordained priests from 1970 onwards were peadophiles,based on the Vatican's own reports). However, the reason I hold the entire organisation accountable is due to how they dealt with the problem: They utterly failed the children in their care when they discovered what was going on.

---SPSmith

Article: What the Right Gets Right - NYTimes.com

2012-01-23T15:01:00.001-08:00

What the Right Gets Right - NYTimes.com
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/what-the-right-gets-right/

the Republican Party has won seven of the last eleven presidential elections; controlled the Senate from 1981 to 1987 and from 1995 to 2007; and controlled the House from 1996 to 2006 and 2011 to 2013.

---SPSmith

Article: What the Left Gets Right

2012-01-23T14:58:00.001-08:00

What the Left Gets Right
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/what-the-left-gets-right/

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

| Righteous Abortion: How Conservative Christians Promote What They Claim to Hate

2012-01-23T08:33:00.001-08:00

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2012/1/22/19617/0671/Front_Page/Righteous_Abortion_How_Conservative_Christians_Promote_What_They_Claim_to_Hate

One of the great ironies of American society is that most abortions in the U.S. are caused by conservative Christians. Read the statistics: Forty nine percent of pregnancies in this country are unintended, a rate that has been painfully stable for almost 30 years. Almost half of those pregnancies end in abortion. Or, to turn it around, over 90% of U.S. abortions are the result of accidental pregnancy. U.S. rates of unwanted pregnancy and abortion far exceed any other country with similar economic development. So does our rate of religiosity. The fact that we are outliers on both is not a coincidence.

---SPSmith

Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class - NYTimes.com

2012-01-23T08:06:00.001-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1

"We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries. We don't have an obligation to solve America's problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible."

— an unnamed Apple executive, in a New York Times article titled "How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work," which examines why Apple and other U.S. tech companies choose to make their products — the increasingly popularsmartphones, tablets, e-readers and more — overseas. Among the many complicated reasons, according to the article: the global economy; the scale, speed and flexibility of overseas factories; and the companies' belief that there is a lack of qualified American workers. One famous Chinese factory, Foxconn Technologies — which has many facilities in Asia and elsewhere — where an estimated 40 percent of the world's electronics are put together, was mentioned in the article as an example of massive scale. At Foxconn plants, workers live onsite in dorms and work 12 hours a day — at least officially. Foxconn has been in the news lately for other things: It apologized last week after CEO Terry Gou reportedly referred to Foxconn workers as animals, with the companysaying his comments were taken out of context. A couple of weeks ago, Foxconn said it had come to an agreement with some employees who had threatened to commit mass suicide over a pay dispute. By the way, Appleannounced earlier this month that it would allow independent monitoring of its suppliers' factories.

---SPSmith

The Keystone - China connection is overblown

2012-01-23T07:49:00.001-08:00

Hey, check this out from CNN:
The Keystone - China connection is overblown
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/23/news/economy/keystone_china/

---SPSmith

The Nordic model

2012-01-22T16:40:00.001-08:00

http://www.etla.fi/files/1892_the_nordic_model_complete.pdf

---SPSmith

Sweden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2012-01-22T16:26:00.001-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden#Public_policy

---SPSmith

Newt Gingrich’s Alternative History : The New Yorker

2012-01-22T12:33:00.001-08:00

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/12/19/111219taco_talk_hertzberg

As the protagonist of the tale, imagine, if you will, a man who, as
Speaker of the House, orchestrates the impeachment of a President for
an adulterous affair with a White House aide twenty-six years his
junior while he himself is conducting an adulterous affair with a
congressional aide twenty-two years his junior, having earlier left
the first of his three wives while she was hospitalized with cancer.
Imagine a man who attributes these behaviors to "how passionately I
felt about this country." Imagine a man who, told he can't sit in a
front section of Air Force One, shuts down the government. Imagine a
man who becomes the only House Speaker ever to be disciplined for
ethics violations. Imagine a man who, in a country just staggering out
of the worst recession of the past fifty years and facing the threat
of worldwide economic collapse, proposes to hire small children to
work as janitors, mopping floors and cleaning toilets in their schools
(or their orphanages, perhaps). Imagine that man as
Commander-in-Chief. It's no stretch for him. His fantasy life is so
rich that he has already compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, Charles
de Gaulle, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and (for sheer
perseverance) Ho Chi Minh.

---SPSmith

Rate of abortion is highest in countries where practice is banned - Health News - Health & Families - The Independent

2012-01-21T21:08:00.001-08:00

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/rate-of-abortion-is-highest-in-countries-where-practice-is-banned-6292070.html

The global abortion rate remained virtually unchanged from 2003 to 2008, at about 28 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, a total of about 43.8 million abortions, according to the study. The rate had previously been dropping since 1995.

---SPSmith

Has Violence Declined? John Gray on Steven Pinker | Practical Ethics

2012-01-21T15:23:00.001-08:00

http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2011/10/has-violence-declined-john-gray-on-steven-pinker/

---SPSmith

Hitchens and Hell - NYTimes.com

2012-01-21T15:18:00.001-08:00

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/hitchens-and-hell/#more-15781

---SPSmith

Steven Pinker's History of Violence - NYTimes.com

2012-01-21T15:09:00.001-08:00

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/steven-pinkers-history-of-violence/

---SPSmith

Article: BBC's The Romantics: The Birth of the Individual in Modern Society

2012-01-21T15:00:00.001-08:00

BBC's The Romantics: The Birth of the Individual in Modern Society
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/06/28/bbc-the-romantics/

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

Ayatollah Santorum the Sanctimonious (ASS) by Thomas DiLorenzo

2012-01-21T11:53:00.001-08:00

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo226.html

---SPSmith

The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution - Henry Friedlander - Google Books

2012-01-20T16:00:00.001-08:00

http://books.google.com/books?id=gqLDEKVk2nMC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=Exclusion&f=false

---SPSmith

Malcolm Muggeridge -- The Great Liberal Death Wish

2012-01-20T15:05:00.001-08:00

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/MuggeridgeLiberal.php

We used to boast in those days that we had an Empire on which the sun
never set, and now we have a commonwealth on which it never rises, and
I can't quite say which concept strikes me as being the more derisory.

---SPSmith

Charles Foster on Living Prudently | FiveBooks | The Browser

2012-01-19T16:59:00.001-08:00

http://thebrowser.com/interviews/charles-foster-on-living-prudently?page=2

Odysseus is the great hero of prudence in all of our literature. He
thinks before he acts, and bases that action on caution

---SPSmith

‘How do atheists find meaning in life?’ - - The Washington Post

2012-01-19T09:23:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/how-do-atheist-find-meaning-in-life/2012/01/18/gIQAbiFP8P_blog.html

Theistic religion reduces life to something that has no value other
than as the creation of an imagined deity. It decrees that purpose and
meaning can only be found in being that deity's puppet, having no
purpose but its purpose and no value other than as its handiwork.
Theistic religion looks on all that is best and most noble in human
impulse and endeavour and dismisses it as meaningless and worthless
--or worse: corrupt --unless done in the name of God. It is time to
abandon this baseless worldview. It is time to reject theistic
religion and start viewing ourselves and others with real dignity, as
beings with value in our own right and not just as the distorted
shadows of a fictional creator.
---SPSmith

In Piracy Bill Fight, New Economy Rises Against Old - NYTimes.com

2012-01-19T09:10:00.001-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/technology/web-protests-piracy-bill-and-2-key-senators-change-course.html

---SPSmith

Article: Creationist paper in a medical journal

2012-01-19T08:00:00.001-08:00

Creationist paper in a medical journal
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/intelligent-design-paper-in-a-medical-journal/

(Sent from Flipboard)

---SPSmith

Cambridge Journals Online - Abstract - THE TEXAS SHARPSHOOTER FALLACY

2012-01-18T13:33:00.001-08:00

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=7950491&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S1477175610000412

A man fires a gun several times at the side of a barn and then draws a circle around a cluster of most of the bullet holes. Drawing a target retrospectively like this doesn't prove the shooting skills of the gunman – no one would consider him a sharpshooter if they knew what he'd done. When the equivalent of this happens in other circumstances we call it the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. As with many fallacies, it may not appear fallacious at first inspection

---SPSmith

The Will to Believe

2012-01-18T11:41:00.001-08:00

http://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/will.html

James discusses three cases of this sort, of which the religious case
is the third. One of these is a very special case — the sort of case
in which, as James says, faith in the fact can help create the fact.
Where the fact in question is something to be wished for, in these
cases, James believes, faith is obviously reasonable.
---SPSmith

William James (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

2012-01-18T11:37:00.001-08:00

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/james/
The Will to Believe also contains James's most developed account of
morality, "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life." Morality for
James rests on sentience — without it there are no moral claims and no
moral obligations. But once sentience exists, a claim is made, and
morality gets "a foothold in the universe" (WB 198). Although James
insists that there is no common essence to morality, he does find a
guiding principle for ethical philosophy in the principle that we
"satisfy at all times as many demands as we can" (WB, 205). This
satisfaction is to be achieved by working towards a "richer
universe…the good which seems most organizable, most fit to enter into
complex combinations, most apt to be a member of a more inclusive
whole" (WB, 210). This work proceeds by a series of experiments, by
means of which we have learned to live (for the most part) without
"polygamy and slavery, private warfare and liberty to kill, judicial
torture and arbitrary royal power." (WB, 205) . However, James holds
that there is "nothing final in any actually given equilibrium of
human ideals, [so that] as our present laws and customs have fought
and conquered other past ones, so they will in their turn be
overthrown by any newly discovered order which will hush up the
complaints that they still give rise to, without producing others
louder still" (WB, 206).

---SPSmith