Romney's Flawed Lesson in Political Economy

newyorker:

There are all sorts of qualifications that Romney should have mentioned before heaping forty-seven per cent of the population into the pile marked “dependency culture” and dismissing them…

John Cassidy Mitt Romney’s lack of clarity: http://nyr.kr/PxdBZG

Open mouth, insert foot.

cartoonpolitics: “If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking is freedom.” ~ President Dwight D Eisenhower Who are they really scared of?

cartoonpolitics:

“If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking is freedom.” ~ President Dwight D Eisenhower

Who are they really scared of?

all1sees: WHY IS THIS NUMBER SO LOW!??!?! LET’S BUMP IT UP. SIGN THE PETITION! AND GET THE WORD OUT!

all1sees:

WHY IS THIS NUMBER SO LOW!??!?!

LET’S BUMP IT UP.

SIGN THE PETITION! AND GET THE WORD OUT!

Online Creationist Textbook Proposed in Texas

helvetebrann:

An online biology textbook up for approval by the Texas State Board of Education is drawing fire from scientific and education groups for tacitly pushing creationism. Created by the obscure, New Mexico-based International Databases LLC, the textbook seeks to justify the existence of a higher being while avoiding direct mention of God or the Bible. The Texas Freedom Network, which monitors the religious right in Texas, said in a press release that its adoption by the SBOE would be “a shocking leap backward.”

The textbook’s “Origin of Life” chapter details lab experiments that have failed to create life from inorganic materials, concluding that there is a huge gap between “life” and “non-life” (as crudely illustrated in the photo at right). But from there it makes the considerable leap that biological explanations for the origin of life are discredited. “[T]he legitimate scientific hypothesis,” it argues, is that “life on Earth is the result of intelligent causes.”

The notes to teachers accompanying the chapter leave little doubt that pushing a belief in God is the ultimate goal:

[A]t the end of the instructional unit on the Origin of Life students should go home with the understanding that a new paradigm of explaining life’s origins is emerging from the failed attempts of naturalistic scenarios. This new way of thinking is predicated on the hypothesis that intelligent input is necessary for life’s origins.

Of course, this is far from the first attempt to insert creationism into Texas classrooms; the issue has often been a cause célèbre for right-wing members of the State Board of Education, as well as Republican state legislators. The SBOE will vote on adopting the new science curriculum materials in July.

Annnnnd I’m back to hating Texas.

The “god of the gaps” is so ridiculous. Every time science fills a gap, religion now sees 2 gaps, and says god’s in there. There are of course multiple logical problems with this, not the least of which is infinite regression, sometimes also referred to as “turtles all the way down”.

I don’t know about you guys, but if I was an omniscient & omnipotent being I wouldn’t be hiding in gaps.

corruptpolitics:

Real Time with Bill Maher: American Exceptionalism.

fuckreligion-x8:

A xmas message from Bill Maher.

Say what you will about the man, but he’s right more often than not.

(Source: anarchatheist)

Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.

Source: America: The Grim Truth

(Source: cluborlov.blogspot.com)

The American myth that the United States promotes democracy and acts for the interests of others is false. It has acted to overthrow democratically elected governments in Iran, Indonesia, Chile and Guatemala. In just this century it has supported coups or attempted coups in Venezuela, Haiti and Honduras. In Honduras it officially opposed the coup but did not enact the financial restrictions that would have brought the coup to an end. It has acted in still other countries to either stop elections or to make sure that they are fraudulent. Included is the slaughter of millions and millions of people either by the military itself or its proxies. This also God does not forget. In the United States itself, on the national level, the campaign finance system is one of great corruption. Corporations and other powerful interests can literally buy people in congress and a president through massive campaign donations. What is best for the majority of people is thwarted so the interests of the powerful can be served. This has led to the reality of massive poverty in this country and the degradation of millions. It is a system of legal bribery.

Source:

The Myth of God and the Myth of America (via azspot)

Chomsky? Is that you?

(I agree, btw)