Sam Harris: A New Year's Resolution for the Rich

Sam Harris: A New Year's Resolution for the Rich: "And the ruination of the United States really does seem possible. It has been widely reported, for instance, that students in Shanghai far surpass our own in science, reading, and math. In fact, when compared to other countries, American students are now disconcertingly average (slightly below in math), where the average includes utopias like Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Albania, Kazakhstan, and Indonesia. President Obama was right to recognize this as a 'Sputnik moment.' But it is worse than that. This story was immediately followed by a report about giddy Creationists in the state of Kentucky being offered $40 million in tax subsidies to produce a full-scale model of Noah's ark. More horrible still, this ludicrous use of public money is probably a wise investment, given that such a monument to scientific ignorance will be guaranteed to attract an ovine influx of Christian tourists from neighboring states. Seeing facts of this kind, juxtaposed without irony or remedy at this dire moment in history, it is hard not to feel that one is witnessing America's irreversible decline. Needless to say, most Americans have no choice but to send their children to terrible schools--where they will learn the lesser part of nothing and emerge already beggared by a national debt now on course to reach $20 trillion. And yet Republicans in every state can successfully campaign on a promise to spend less on luxuries like education, while delivering tax cuts to people who, if asked to guess their own net worth, could not come within $10 million of the correct figure if their lives depended on it.

Also from WEIT:

The latest issue of The American Interest Online deals with the reality and ramifications of this inequality. From an essay by ex-conservative Francis Fukuyama, “Left Out“:

This is not, however, what this issue of The American Interest means by plutocracy. We mean not just rule by the rich, but rule by and for the rich. We mean, in other words, a state of affairs in which the rich influence government in such a way as to protect and expand their own wealth and influence, often at the expense of others. As the introductory essay to this issue shows, this influence may be exercised in four basic ways: lobbying to shift regulatory costs and other burdens away from corporations and onto the public at large; lobbying to affect the tax code so that the wealthy pay less; lobbying to allow the fullest possible use of corporate money in political campaigns; and, above all, lobbying to enable lobbying to go on with the fewest restrictions. Of these, the second has perhaps the deepest historical legacy.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Die Leere von Weihnachten « Choice in Dying

Die Leere von Weihnachten « Choice in Dying:

"I got angry. I got angry at the lazy assumption that religion is about meaning, purpose, goals, direction and hope. It isn’t. It’s about control, power, intrusion in and interference with the lives of others, in order to give oneself some sense of meaning, purpose, goals, direction and hope."

A new blog to watch.

Richard Dawkins | A shameful Thought for the Day | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Richard Dawkins | A shameful Thought for the Day | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk:

"That's right. The creator of the universe, sublime inventor of mathematics, of relativistic space-time, of quarks and quanta, of life itself, Almighty God, who reads our every thought and hears our every prayer, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God couldn't think of a better way to forgive us than to have himself tortured and executed. For heaven's sake, if he wanted to forgive us, why didn't he just forgive us? Who, after all, needed to be impressed by the blood and the agony? Nobody but himself."

Original sin. I haven't succeeded in understanding this yet. If that is possible. God (Jesus) died for our sins to abolish death?

"Christ destroyed death forever and restored life by means of his shameful death on the Cross."

So somehow accepting Jesus as my savior absolves me from my sin? What sin? The fact that I was born? Why do I have sin to be absolved of? Because of the "fall"? What was that? Some failure to worship properly the god? So he gets pissed off and says everyone is born with sin? But sends his son to earth to die so that sin can be absolved? Kind of sounds like a mob shakedown. Is this right, do I have the essential concept?

A reply to a YouTuber

"Funny how you act sarcastic and disrespectful with me when I came to you with peace. Well, I know one thing for sure, like it was predicted in prophecies, The believers of God will always be HATED by fools who think they know better. We will be laughed at, disrespected, and hated on. Hmmm. Sounds like the traits of Lucifer. I bet you would murder a Christian if your belief told you so, right? Cuz you hate them so much and deny the very existence of our heavenly father. Tell me, what wrong have Christians done to you besides hope to give you meaningful truth? And i bet you celebrate Christmas, right? Why do you celebrate it if you don't believe in Christ, the son of God? If you don't believe in him, then throw away all the gifts you bought for your loved ones and gifts given to you. And if they ask why you did that, tell them because you don't believe in Christ, therefore there is no need for me to celebrate Christmas. Otherwise, you'd be a walking contradiction against your belief. Peace and Godbless."

I don't hate the believers, I hate the religion and what it does to them.  I wouldn't murder anyone, I would protect myself from the mindless religious hoards that have been sent forth throughout history.  How have Christians wronged me?  They do it daily, hourly.  I have no chance for an atheist representative in the US Senate, Presidency or Supreme Court.  The religious are continuously trying to squash science education because it conflicts with their "truth" and then deal with the poorly educated that has been the result.  I must pay taxes for a military to protect my nation from attack by religious zealots and provide stability in the world where the religious regularly kill each other's children.  I hate seeing people waste their lives and resources following preachers and religious dogma while priests fuck little boys.  I don't need their iron-age "meaningful truth" that is narrow and stagnant.  I celebrate the end of the year, not the make believe birth of Christ.  The solstice has been a holiday a lot longer than it's been a Christian holiday.  I celebrate the end of a long busy year where I made meaningful contributions to my family, community, and nation.  Even to the world.  I wasted no effort worshiping a make-believe deity or supporting a power hungry religion.  I celebrate my family's successes and achievements from the year and come together with them to enjoy their company.  Christ, god, religion had nothing to do with our lives and will never.  Merry Christmas to you, may you see reason in the new year.

The worse, the better?

Is that the game the republicans are really playing?  Keep things bad, let things get worse, even make things worse intentionally so that the elections in 2012 will be a slam dunk for republican chances?

Hey Senate Republicans! Who do you work for?

Senate Republicans demanded that nothing would be passed until they got tax cuts for the rich passed.  Well, that happened.  The marginally stimulative tax cuts for the 1% who make 24% of the total income in this country passed.  Now they want to hold off on voting on the 2010 START treaty (a treaty recognized and approved by both Democrats and Republicans) and the government spending bill that keeps the government running.  They claim they haven't had enough time to examine them.  They claim it is disrespectful of the religious season.  They say the government spending bill has pork in it.  I call this bullshit.  The fact is that the spending bill has as much Republican pork as any other.  They've been playing politics for the last 2 years since Obama won the election.  They started campaigning for 2012 the day Obama won his election, doing anything to keep the President accomplishing as little as possible.  Stalling with filibuster after filibuster, abusing this procedure like no other party has ever. 

I am pissed.  I expect the people elected by the people to do the goddamn jobs they were elected to do.  There is no reason to stall and delay START and the government spending plan other than to play politics, to make Obama look a little less effective.  It is almost treasonous.  It is definately petty and childish.

I will be working through the Christmas holiday supporting warfighters with the spacecraft I help operate.  The servicemen and women around the world will be working 24/7 doing the jobs they volunteered to do in places most of us would rather stay away from.  The Senate Republicans need to step up and do their jobs, quit playing games and pass these bills that keep the government running and make our nation secure.

Paranal telescopes with Laser Guide star (Unique 360º night time lapse)

Have they won?

4thamendmentwear:


TSA being able to take x-ray pictures of us, possibly in violation of the 4th amendment, sort of means the terrorists have won? I kind of think so.  I think the TSA has gone a bit too far, not to blame them for it, but I think that is what has happened.  They have been charged with protecting us and they are trying to do the best they can as they were tasked to.  So, the American people have to decide how much risk we are willing to take for our liberties.  Do we stop this and accept the risk that a non-metalic weapon (shoe bomb, underwear bomb) could get through and we may have another disaster?  Or do we accept this as part of life and not an infringement on our rights against unreasonable search?

I for one would accept the risk.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Darwin's Dangerous Idea Episode 1 Body and Soul Part 1/4 BBC HD

This series from BBC is very much worth the watch. 3 hrs total and packed with information.

Darwin quotes...

"Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature."

"if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with a certain and great present evil."

I am watching BBC's series "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" on YouTube and in the episode on equality, Andrew Marr paraphrased the above quotes from Darwin's book "Decent of Man".

Something to use against creationists when they claim "Darwinism" is immoral.

Evolution discussion

I survived 5 minutes of "Incredible Creatures that Defy Evolution #1" and Dr Martin exposed his total lack of understanding of evolution. He may be a dentist, but he has no credentials to teach evolution. All of his arguments were, "that couldn't happen all at once." Well, that isn't evolution, is it? As you could guess, I think you wasted your time with those shows. If you are interested in what evolution actually is, the link here is a start. The simple beauty of evolution has god beat hands down. In my opinion.

Sorry you didn't watch the rest or maybe you did. You see Dr Martin was taught in our schools the same thing you were. Darwin himself stated that maybe his whole idea was a fantasy. Too bad for him he didn't acknowledge "Intelligent Design", but I can thank him that his work sparked deeper investigation that blows evolution out of the water. Just would hope and pray that I would see you in Heaven when that time comes because I love you. God bless.

[I didn't send this last reply, it wouldn't be useful, maybe if he comes back with questions]

I've heard his arguments quite often. I have to keep my mind open but when you hear the same junk over and over again, it gets painful. Just because he was in the classes doesn't mean he truly understood it. He said he taught it but that really doesn't mean anything. The first sentences out of his mouth were common misconceptions about evolution.  I skipped through the video and every mystery was here is this weird thing, how could that happen by itself?  No attempt to use evolution to try to explain.  Darwin, as all scientists I've read, as is the scientific method, has to doubt his own theories. His doubt was 150 years ago! The testing and confirmations had hardly started by the time he died. In those 150 years evolution has been tested and confirmed many ways via many different science disciplines regardless of what this video states. None of the "mysteries" of this video are actually mysterious. More than 99% of life science scientists accept evolution as fact. Fact, not the common use of theory. Many of the drugs and treatments we have today would not exist without the understanding of evolution.  I see this country falling behind in science and math.  We have fallen behind the rest of the world in many ways, headed to becoming a 2nd rate county.  We are doomed to mediocrity if more people follow this guy and people like him back to the middle ages.

RE: PRS Charging

As I sit here with an ice pack on my wrist, steroids rubbed into the tendons, cortisone barely touching the pain, I am being told to charge OVTU as much as possible for typing up 14 PADRs? I hate this fucking job.

From:
Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2010 7:49 AM
To:
Subject: PRS Charging
MOO&LSS/O&S Managers,
I have received a few questions this week on this topic…

The PRS charging information for MOO&LSS is:

For your convenience I also attached some guidelines that Justin put together that may be helpful to your team(s) if they don’t already have them. As mentioned by Ed in his Staff a few weeks ago, please keep charging to a minimum this year and use OVTU when possible.

Thank you,
Brad

PRS are employee performance appraisals.  OVTU is unpaid overtime, yet again they failed to budget any time for us to actually write the things and we can't charge the customer for them.

Pissed off

Pissed off.  Why?  Democrats lost the House.  Democrats lost seats in the Senate.  Obama tried to work with the Republicans and got nowhere, and kept trying when it was obvious he was being strung along.  What are the Dems going to do with this drubbing?  Turtle up.  Work together and come out with and stick with a consistent message they the defend strongly?  No.  Turtle up.  They have to the end of this year to show me wrong here.

The people of this country and this state piss me off.  We passed amendments to make fees require 2/3 vote in the legislature.  Now local counties and cities are really going to deteriorate.  This may be worse than Prop-13.  The proposition to place an $18 State Park fee on vehicle registration in return for free access failed.  This made total sense!  Are you asleep?  Oh, it was a back door tax!  Ooohhh!  More taxes!  "Hidden Taxes!"  What better way to keep our state parks in great shape, making California a great place to visit, bringing in millions if not billions in economic stimulus, benefiting even those who never set foot in a state park.  But no.  Our infrastructure is going to fall apart because of Prop 26 and on top of that so will our state parks.   This place is going to look real nasty with parks no one wants to visit, crap roads, no services.  Business won't stick around if it becomes impossible to do business and employees don't want to live here. 

The Republicans are going to try to change the health care reform act.  I think they are going to find that harder to do than simply "repealing Obamacare."  I'm pissed off.  The fools who voted these morons into office are going to hear from me.  This directly hits my wallet and my family and repeal isn't going to happen quietly.

Obama, what you do with the remains of this congress determines if I support you in 2012.  Don't fuck it up.

No recent posts.

For some reason this cracks me up.  I didn't make it up.  Maybe I shouldn't laugh, there are 3.5 million people who like it.  And poor Katie is too young to like it.  

I am so tired.

3rd week of grave shift and worked the last 2.5 weekends.  I can't see straight at this computer at work, I am practically worthless.  But they have to have "management presence" through these orbit raising burns.  I've got work to do but can't keep my eyes open enough to do it.  Unless something happens to get my adrenaline up.  So far, nothing tonight.