Politics

There’s an interesting article in the July 23, 2008 The New Yorker by David Samuels, “Dr. Kush: How medical marijuana is transforming the pot industry." It describes the current state of medical marijuana business in California, where the operators of small dispensaries, which are fully compliant with state law but not federal, are not prosecuted despite occasional fed harassment. That harassment will no doubt continue until either Raich v. Ashcroft gets overturned (it was a terrible Supreme Court decision) or the feds decide to decriminalize marijuana themselves, one of which I expect to happen in the next decade.

Former McCain advisor and security researcher Stephen Spoonamore suggested at a press conference on Thursday that Diebold tampered with Georgia’s 2002 elections for Governor and Senator, in which Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss defeated incumbent Democrat Sen. Max Cleland. Spoonamore was given a copy of a patch applied to Diebold machines in two strongly Democratic counties, DeKalb and Fulton, by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, allegedly in order to fix a clock-related problem. Spoonamore found that the patch did nothing to correct the clock problem, and contained two copies of the same program, but was unable to determine exactly what it did without access to the Diebold hardware. He has supplied a copy of the patch, which he obtained from a whistleblower in the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, to the Department of Justice.

Stephen Baldwin says he will leave the country if Obama wins. But will he stay away for at least four years? Of course, he’s just mocking his brother Alec’s statement that he would leave the country if Bush were elected in 2000, which he didn’t follow through on, either.

Via Long or Short Capital comes a children’s story authored by FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair. The blog gives two versions of the story, first from the Amazon description of the book: Rock and Brock may be twins, but they are as different as two twins can be. One day, their grandpa offers them a plan-for ten straight weeks on Saturday he will give them each one dollar for doing their chores. But there is a catch! Each dollar they save, he will match. Rock is excited-there are all sorts of things he can buy for one dollar. So each week he spends his money on something different-a toy moose head, green hair goo, white peppermint wax fangs. But while Rock is spending his money, Brock is saving his. And each week when Rock gets just one dollar, Brock’s savings get matched. By summer’s end, Brock has five hundred and twelve dollars, while Rock has none. When Rock sees what his brother has saved, he realizes he has made a mistake. But Brock shows him that it is never too late to start saving. ...

Mark Morford at the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, back on June 6: Barack Obama isn’t really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway. … Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.Sorry, but this is crazy talk–and crazy talk of the sort that the religious right will grab a hold of, translate “Lightworker” into “Light bearer” into “Lucifer,” and decide that Obama’s the Antichrist. Morford writes that he doesn’t literally believe this, and warns up front that: Warning: If you are a rigid pragmatist/literalist, itchingly evangelical, a scowler, a doubter, a burned-out former ’60s radical with no hope left, or are otherwise unable or unwilling to parse alternative New Age speak, click away right now, because you ain’t gonna like this one little bit.But even on a non-literal level, I don’t like it. The job of the president is to lead the executive branch of the government, not to be national daddy, mommy, or Messiah. Obama clearly has a lot of charisma and speaks very well, which is something that can be used positively or negatively–and more often than not it’s the latter. ...

President George W. Bush gave a speech at Monticello on July 4 that said, quoting Jefferson: On the 50th anniversary of Americas independence, Thomas Jefferson passed away. But before leaving this world, he explained that the principles of the Declaration of Independence were universal. In one of the final letters of his life, he wrote, May it be to the world, what I believe it will be to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.Here’s what Jefferson actually wrote: May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.As Wonkette aptly notes, “Yeah dude, looks like you forgot the good part.” (Though Wonkette incorrectly attributes the Constitution to Jefferson along with the Declaration of Independence.) (Thanks to Scott Peterson on the SKEPTIC list.) UPDATE (July 16, 2008): Roger Kimball has responded to this issue, and Ed Brayton points out what he’s gotten right and what he’s gotten wrong about Jefferson’s views on religion. (Contrary to Dawkins and Hitchens, Jefferson was no atheist, nor even a deist. He referred to himself as a Unitarian, and Brayton calls him a “theistic rationalist.”) ...

Webster Cook smuggled a magic biscuit out of the service of a lunatic cult, in order to show a friend what it was like. Members of the cult issued death threats, the local spokespeople for the cult suggested that he was in danger of eternal damnation and called it a “hate crime,” and completely insane national spokespeople claimed that he had committed the moral equivalent of kidnapping. Details at Pharyngula. This sounds like something that could have fit in Bill Maher’s “Religulous." (Hat tip to Wowbagger for the title.) UPDATE (July 10, 2008): The Pharyngula post linked to above has resulted in Bill Donohue of the Catholic League taking notice and calling for P.Z. Myers to be fired. That in turn has resulted in P.Z. Myers receiving 39 pieces of hate mail so far today, of which 34 have demanded that he be fired and four have included death threats. 25 have suggested that, instead of desecrating a cracker, Myers should desecrate a Koran–showing that those individuals don’t think the tolerance they demand for themselves applies to other religions. (Sounds like our commenter Jenn!) UPDATE (July 11, 2008): The Catholic League has issued another press release, which contains this insanity: As a result of the hysteria that Myers’ ilk have promoted, at least one public official is taking it seriously. Thomas E. Foley is chairman of Virginia’s First Congressional District Republican Committee, a delegate to the Republican National Convention and one of two Republican at large nominees for Virginia’s Electoral College. His concern is for the safety of Catholics attending this year’s Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Myers’ backyard. Accordingly, Foley has asked the top GOP brass to provide additional security while in the Twin Cities so that Catholics can worship without fear of violence. Given the vitriol we have experienced for simply exercising our First Amendment right to freedom of speech, we support Foley’s request.It’s the Catholics who have been comparing taking instead of eating a cracker to kidnapping and hate speech, and issuing death threats against someone who suggested doing the same. But now the Republican National Convention, being held 150 miles away from Myers’ home, needs extra security because of his proximity? Lunacy. Myers has also published the email he’s received. Some of the alleged death threats don’t, I think, pass legal muster as such, but I think this one does: You are really fucked now. Lock your doors at night, and check under your car before you turn the ignition key.This one doesn’t quite make it: IF Catholics had half the testosterone of muzzies, the answer would be simple. Holy hollowpoint. But alas, I expect they will whimper and grovel as usual.UPDATE (July 12, 2008): Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars weighs in. Andrew Sullivan, after taking Myers to task, publishes dissenting opinions that make better arguments than his. Ed Brayton responds to Sullivan. P.Z. Myers catches Catholic sock puppets commenting on his blog. John Wilkins writes an insightful comment on “Desecration, blasphemy in public, and manners." UPDATE (July 13, 2008): P.Z. Myers has received more nasty email, which he has posted with full headers. If the first one is not actually from Melanie Kroll at 1800flowers.com, I’d say she has a compromised machine, and it’s a clear death threat. The second is from Steve C. Montemurro, a 41-year-old conservative Catholic from Hastings on Hudson, NY, and it appears to be more of a wish for Myers’ death than a threat. UPDATE (July 16. 2008): Turns out the email from Melanie Kroll’s machine was the result of a compromise of sorts–it was from her husband, Chuck Kroll, and she lost her job as a result of it. Makes sense–she shouldn’t have allowed her husband to use her computer to access her work resources at all, let alone to send death threats. Details at Pharyngula. UPDATE (July 18, 2008): Network World has coverage of Melanie Kroll’s firing. The Science Museum of Minnesota will be closed down during the Republican National Convention as part of the security measures for the Xcel Energy Center, across the street. As P.Z. Myers observes, there’s a metaphor in that. UPDATE (July 26, 2008): Webster Cook has been impeached and removed from his position in student government at the University of Central Florida, and both he and his friend Benjamin Collard have been charged with misconduct, disruptive conduct, and giving false identification and had a hold put on their ability to sign up for classes. The school is buckling under to pressure from Bill Donohue and the Catholic League to persecute these students on trumped up charges. P.Z. Myers suggests writing to the UCF president; I suggest the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education get involved. P.Z. Myers has posted another selection of crazy Catholic hate mail he’s received. Do these people genuinely think they are doing the Lord’s work? ...

That’s the title of Vincent Bugliosi’s latest book, which just reached #14 on the New York Times bestseller list on Sunday despite having virtually no mainstream media attention. It has sold 130,000 copies, but ABC Radio refused to allow an advertisement for the book on the Don Imus show, and both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report declined to show any interest in having Bugliosi on as a guest. The book sets out a legal case for a criminal prosecution of George W. Bush as being criminally responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Bugliosi, the former Los Angeles County prosecutor with a perfect record of murder prosecutions, including the prosecution of Charles Manson which he recounted in his book Helter Skelter 30 years ago, most recently authored the book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a massive 1,612-page book that responds in detail to conspiracy theorists. That book is being made into a 10-hour miniseries by Tom Hanks for HBO. A shorter book, drawn from the content of Reclaiming History, has been published under the title Four Days in November.

The fifth ApostAZ podcast (MP3) is out: Episode 005 Atheism and Freethought in Phoenix- “Every Sperm is Sacred” from Monty Python’s ‘The Meaning of Life’. Group Events. Phoenix, Billboards! Suckics hone in on Autism. Astromnology. Us vs Them? Phelps Hallucinations. Gay marriage, still an issue, still a tax money black-hole! Greydon Square, “Dream” from ‘The Compton Effect’ album.I didn’t get my contribution in on time, but I’ll have a science and skepticism segment in episode 006. My comments on this episode: While McCain opposes gay marriage and pays lip service to the idea of same-sex civil unions, Obama also opposes gay marriage (though says he’d like to repeal DOMA and institute a federal law supporting same-sex civil unions, even in front of audiences that oppose gay rights, so he is somewhat better than McCain on that issue). They also both support faith-based government programs–neither is a strict separationist on church and state. (But again, I think Obama is slightly better than McCain on that subject in terms of what he says–at least he opposes giving federal funding to groups that discriminate or proselytize, though it’s unclear he’ll take action to stop it.) On abortion, there can certainly be secular moral arguments for restrictions on late-term abortion, just as there can be secular moral arguments against infanticide. Arguments that abortion involves killing a person, a being with a right to life, need to come to terms with Judith Jarvis-Thomson’s violinist argument, which argues that even if a fetus has a right to life, it doesn’t have the right to be supported by its mother’s body if the mother did not consent. This has further implication that if the fetus could be transplanted or removed and survive on its own (e.g., it’s already reached the point of viability, which is the standard applied by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade), then that’s immoral and criminalizable. But it also implies, it seems to me, that there is a reasonable range of actions which could constitute consent to supporting a fetus–such as voluntarily engaging in sex without contraception, which any reasonable person should know has a reasonably high probability of producing a child. My own view is that abortion is immoral to the point of justifying legal prohibition in any case where (a) there’s such at least tacit consent to carry a child and (b) the fetus has reached a point of brain development where there’s a reasonable case to be made for personhood. I’m not convinced that (b) ever happens in reality, since I think there’s a strong argument that personhood requires a capacity for self-awareness, which doesn’t seem to occur until about six months after birth, but I can certainly conceive of empirical evidence that would change my mind about when that point is reached. There may be other cases where abortion is immoral, e.g., intentionally waiting until late in the pregnancy, and then terminating for a trivial reason of convenience. On the Biblical justification for opposition to medical treatment: Jehovah’s Witnesses oppose blood transfusions on the grounds of Old Testament prohibitions on consuming blood (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:11-14, and Acts 15:20, 29), even though those all refer to consuming animal blood and have nothing to do with transfusions of human blood. Christian Scientists oppose medical treatment not on the basis of anything in the Bible, but based on the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy. Their view is that everything good and holy is spiritual, while everything physical or material is evil, yet is also illusory or at least a distortion of the spiritual world. This has some resemblance to Buddhist views of “maya,” and also to the early Christian heresy known as Docetism, which was the view that Jesus’ humanity was an illusion, because the physical cannot be holy. Thus, under this view, engaging in physical repair (medicine) of what is an illusory distortion of the underlying spiritual reality is not only a waste of time, but sinful–the only real repair possible is spiritual, through prayer. (And further, illness itself is of the physical, and thus illusory.) The ApostAZ website is here. ...

BBC’s “The Conspiracy Files” investigative report on the collapse of WTC 7 will air on Sunday, July 6. They have some promotional videos on the web, including an explanation of their reporter’s statement that WTC 7 had collapsed before it did. The conspiracy theorists claim that it had to be a controlled demolition, because WTC 7 was not hit by a plane and was virtually untouched. But the latter claim is false–WTC 7 was heavily damaged by the collapse of the twin towers, with a giant hole in the southwest corner about 20 stories high. There were raging fires in a building full of diesel fuel and backup generators. The BBC investigation will no doubt report in more detail on the facts that the conspiracy theorists like to pretend don’t exist.