It still amazes me that organizations that are rabidly homophobic have the gall to call themselves “pro-family”.  They couldn’t give two shits about families–it’s all about hatin’ on some fags.  The latest example of this comes from Peter LaBarbera of the inaccurately named group, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.  Peter is a bit upset that Blue Cross & Blue Shield has decided to recognize the marriage of two lesbians and give health insurance to the couple and their infant daugther.

BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York made the decision after the New York Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of an insured lesbian who sought coverage for her partner and the partner’s infant daughter. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, says this is the sad reality of effective homosexual propaganda and activism.

“The very fact that BlueCross BlueShield capitulated so easily, that doesn’t say much for them as a company,” said LaBarbera. “At one point in society, companies were more moral. Now we see companies leading the amoral rush to fund and subsidize and benefit so-called homosexual ‘marriages’ and homosexual-led ‘families’….”

Though LaBarbera decries the company’s decision to cave to pro-homosexual pressure, he says his greatest concern is for the child being raised in a homosexual household.

Yes, he’s so concerned about the child that he’d prefer it if the baby was denied health insurance to punish her parents for their sinful lifestyle.  This is what passes as concern for families in groups like LaBarbera’s:  it’s fine if a loving family has to struggle without health insurance as long as the gays are treated as second class citizens.

“I fully believe that these two women love that child, love that baby. But the sad fact is that baby is growing up in a home which is intentionally fatherless, by design — and that’s wrong,” he argues. “And that’s going to handicap that baby’s life as she grows up. She needs a dad.  And a ‘replacement dad’ — be it an uncle or some friend, some male friend that these women have — can never substitute for her having a father.”

Extensive social science research shows that children raised by a married mother and fathers typically perform better academically and economically, and are healthier and better adjusted than those raised in what society is referring to as ”alternative” households.

Except that the research shows no such thing.  Studies have shown that children typically do better in two-parent households, however the sex of the parents makes no difference.  LaBarbera is misrepresenting the research (shocking) to fit his agenda of hate.  I also enjoy that he admits that the women certainly love their child.  In effect he’s admitting that this is a functional, loving family, but he’d prefer it if they were denied health insurance coverage because the parents have The Gay.  LaBarbera and others like him are not family advocates.  They are hateful bigots to the highest degree, pure and simple.

I need to stop reading Answers in Genesis.  The brain damage suffered from visiting their website may not be irreversible after prolonged exposure, and we can’t have that.  The latest offense to modern human thought comes courtesy of Jason Lisle, who is yet another example that a five-star ignoramus can get a PhD.  The article in question is a reply to a reader’s question about a statement in a previous article at AiG, which reads in part:

I read the feedback that Jason Lisle, Ph.D. wrote in response to the feedback concerning the article “Feedback: Does Logic Supersede the Bible?” The quote I found to be absurd was, “However, if evolution were true, if our brain and sensory organs are simply accidents of nature and if nature itself is merely an accident of a big bang, then there would be no reason to trust that our senses and memory are reliable or that there should be any order in the universe to study.” Jason Lisle. Natural selection is not an accident, it is a process. Also, why should we not trust our senses? Regardless of how they came into existence, they are still there, and working.

In response, Dr. Lisle breaks out the high-grade stupid:

Since God designed the human mind and our senses, we would expect them to be able to function properly. So, in the Christian worldview, it makes sense that our senses would reliably perceive the environment and that our mind would have the ability to be rational. But in the evolutionary worldview, the sensory organs and the brain are just chemical accidents that happened to convey survival value. Therefore, there is no logical reason to think that they should be reliable…The point is that if evolution were true, there would be no reason to think that the senses are reliable. Therefore, those people who believe in both (1) the reliability of the senses and (2) evolution are being inconsistent. They are believing in something that has no rational foundation within their own worldview.

Maybe I’m missing something here, but how exactly would unreliable sense organs “convey survival value”?  Why would eyes that don’t accurately render the external world be beneficial?  Lisle has it backwards:  if evolution is true, there is no reason to think the senses are unreliable.  He continues:

But an evolutionist does not have a logical reason to trust his senses within his own worldview. Consider the following analogy. Suppose someone was trying to solve an arithmetic problem, but rather than using a calculator or doing the arithmetic by hand, this person decided to simply throw a pair of dice instead. Whatever numbers are displayed on the dice, the person accepts as the answer to the math problem. Would this be rational?

Clearly, a person that accepted the results of a roll of dice as the answer to a math problem is not thinking rationally. Why should he trust a non-deliberate “chance” process to come up with a rational answer to anything? Likewise, if our brain is nothing more than chemistry, why trust its conclusions? If our sensory organs and brain are simply accidents that have been preserved because they had some sort of survival value, why should we think that they are truthful? Survival value does not equate to truth.

Unghh…it burns, the stupid.  Has Dr. Lisle ever studied the biochemistry of the nervous system?  Our brains and sense organs do not function by pure chance, but rather by complex biochemical pathways that respond in specific ways to stimuli.  Yes, many of the protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions that take place are stochastic to some degree, but the overall process simply isn’t comparable to a toss of the dice.  Contrary to what Dr. Lisle may say, the process is deliberate, just not in the sense that he means.  Neurons deliberately pump sodium and potassium ions to create an electric potential across their membrane to be used in creating the action potentials that signal other neurons in response to a stimulus.  This usage of “deliberate” may be a bit loose, but the activity of neurons is a purposeful process that is innate to the cell.

At some point in the future, I’ll get to the original article by Dr. Lisle that prompted the reader response.  In that piece he actually argues that logic depends on Christianity.  Right now, I’ve had enough of Dr. Lisle’s inanity for one evening.  Short exposures are key, remember, lest you suffer irreparable brain damage.

Are you concerned about climate change?  Worried about the state of our environment?  Well, you shouldn’t be.  You see, Jesus already saved the planet 2000 years ago, so it’s all taken care of.  At least according to Republican representative Michele Bachmann:

[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she’s just trying to save the planet. We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet — we didn’t need Nancy Pelosi to do that,” says Bachmann.

I don’t think I need to comment, that kind of idiocy speaks for itself.  The really sad thing is that there is no shortage of Americans who believe the exact same crap.

In a way, I suppose I should be thanking ABC’s Cokie Roberts.  There has been a glut of quality stupid the last few days, and I haven’t really found anything irksome enough to write about recently.  Maybe Cokie noticed that as well and felt the need to fill the void of cranium-sucking inanity by lowering the level of political discourse in the mainstream media even further–a task that I didn’t think possible.  Like most of her colleagues, Cokie can’t be bothered discussing mundane things like the social, economic, and environmental policies of the candidates, focusing instead on the really pressing stuff, like whether or not Obama is an elitist.  Not to be outdone in this endeavor, Cokie actually cites Obama’s vacation to Hawaii as evidence that he is out of touch with the common folk.  Although she is careful to point out that she is aware that Hawaii is a state (good for you, Cokie!), she likens it to “some sort of foreign, exotic place” before suggesting that Obama should have chosen Myrtle Beach instead.  She was so impressed with this bit of insight that she repeated it today on NPR.

How, exactly, is Hawaii an “exotic place”?  Probably because it isn’t white enough for Cokie’s tastes.  The fact that someone can say something so trivial and so vapid as part of a political discussion on a major television network and not immediately get laughed off the set is depressing enough.  But if votes can really be swayed based on the vacation destinations that a candidate chooses, then this country is beyond fucked.  Notice also that there is no mention of the fact that John McCain takes every weekend off, presumably resting up in one of his eight homes before heading back out onto the campaign trail in the private jet provided by his mega-rich wife.  Nope, nothing elitist about that.

A couple of weeks ago, Mayor Cheye Calvo of Berwyn Heights, MD and his family were treated to a lovely visit by Prince George County police.  After tracking a package containing 30 pounds of marijuana to the mayor’s home, SWAT stormed in, shot the mayor’s two black Labradors, and then questioned the handcuffed mayor and his mother-in-law for two hours, surrounded the entire time by the carcasses of their dead dogs.  As it turns out, the marijuana did not belong to the Calvos, and the police have since arrested two FedEx deliverymen who were operating a smuggling operation out of their delivery vans.  Even better, the cops didn’t even have the proper no-knock warrant for their home invasion.  The good news, though, is that the FBI is now investigating the actions of the County police.

The FBI has opened an investigation into how police in Prince Georges County, Maryland, handled a drug raid last month at the home of a small town mayor.

Mayor Cheye Calvo got home from work, saw a package addressed to his wife on the front porch and brought it inside, putting it on a table.

Suddenly, police with guns drawn kicked in the door and stormed in, shooting to death the couple’s two dogs and seizing the unopened package.

In it were 32 pounds of marijuana. But the drugs evidently didn’t belong to the couple.
Police say the couple appeared to be innocent victims of a scheme by two men to smuggle millions of dollars worth of marijuana by having it delivered to about a half-dozen unsuspecting recipients…

Now, federal authorities say they’re looking into how local law enforcement handled the July 29 raid. FBI Special Agent Rich Wolf said late Thursday that the bureau had opened a civil rights investigation into the case…

The FBI will monitor how effective, fair and professional the law enforcement agency behaved during the incident, Wolf said. A police spokesman declined comment Thursday on the FBI investigation.

I seriously doubt, however, that the FBI will find any fault with the police conduct in this case.  As Radley Balko points out, this story is really only unique in that the victim happened to the city’s mayor.  Shooting the dog is pretty much official policy in police departments these days.  If the FBI comes down on the police in this case, then police the whole country over might have to get over their irrational fear of housepets.  Still, at least there is some hope that the investigation, along with the media coverage, will get some cops to think twice before blasting scared and fleeing Labrador retrievers.  Fido shouldn’t be the victim of our senseless and ineffective war on green, leafy plants.

I’m back from a nice vacation in the sweltering midwest, and it looks like I’ve got a lot of catching up to do in Internet Land.  In the meantime, here’s a nice warning against relying too heavily on web-based translators to render the name of your business in another language.

Last week the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit again ruled against the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), a blatantly unconstitutional law enacted in 1998 to, ostensibly, protect the little kiddies from sex on the internet.  That’s right, 1998.  COPA has been never been enforced, and it has spent it’s entire life getting the living shit beat out of it in court.  The ACLU sums up the legal history:

Previously, a federal district court and a federal appeals court found the online censorship law violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution. The Supreme Court upheld that decision, effectively banning enforcement of the law in June 2004 and sending the case back to the district court to determine whether there had been any changes in technology that would affect the constitutionality of the statute, such as whether commercially available blocking software was still as effective as the banned law might be in blocking material deemed “harmful to minors.” In March 2007, a district judge once again struck down COPA; the government again appealed, and today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the ban.

COPA is so unconstitutional and has been brutalized so badly in court that supporters of the law are almost extinct.  But leave it to Janet LaRue, formerly of Concerned Women for America, to step up and defend the indefensible.  I’m not going to fisk her entire article, mostly because there isn’t much in the way of substance in it to tackle.  Instead, I’ll just take on the main thrust of the thing, which is that COPA is a great law that protects children from the evil porno that infests the intertubes: Read the rest of this entry »

Anyone who has paid any attention to right-wing talking heads is familiar with the common contention that the mainstream media are in love with Barack Obama.  The volume of this complaint has been ratcheted up to deafening levels recently due to Obama’s world tour last week.  As usual, though, this little bit of conservative “conventional wisdom” is dead wrong.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.

During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.

Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.

This doesn’t surprise me one bit.  I’ve been stunned at how effortlessly Republicans have been able to control the media dialogue regarding Obama.  The people who make the argument, however, tend to honestly think that Fox News is truly “fair and balanced”, so to them media outlets that don’t base their reporting on the premise that Obama is some sort of anti-American Manchurian Candidate are infatuated with the Democrat and biased against McCain.

Damn it.  Ed Brayton had to go and expose me to the horrors of the comments section of the Boycott McDonald’s website.  The McDonald’s boycott, the newest project of the American Family Association, was started after McDonald’s gave some money to the NGLCC, an organization of gay and lesbian business owners.  Naturally, the homophobes reacted as if Ronald McDonald had just fellated Mayor McCheese on national television.  After this grave assault on Family Values™, the AFA attacked McDonald’s for refusing to “remain neutral in the culture wars” and urged its supporters to boycott the fast-food giant.  Unfortunately, the AFA allows supporters to leave comments of their own on the boycott website.  The result is a badass car crash of thought that onlookers cannot help but gawk at in a strange mixture of fear, curiosity, and amazement.  If you’re looking for a depressing window into the small minds of “values voters”, check out the comments section at the boycott website.  Here are some of my favorites: Read the rest of this entry »

The ignorance on display at Conservapedia regarding Richard Lenski’s paper finally got to me, so I decided to try posting to the talk page of their “Flaws in Richard Lenski Study” article to see how long it would take to get banned.  And I don’t mean banned for blatant trolling, mind you, but merely for disagreeing with Andy Schlafly.  It actually took a bit longer than I thought, 8 days, but I did try really hard to remain cordial with the douchebags.  It began innocently enough, simply trying to engage the eggplants on some of their more egregious deficiencies.  But it quickly became apparent that Andy Schlafly and his goons aren’t at all interested in actually discussing anything.  Andy is particularly bad, and his tactic is to ignore all substantive criticism, either by not replying or stubbornly restating his original point as if no counterpoint had ever been offered.

The most disconcerting thing, however, is the tendency of the Conservapedia faithful, Andy included, to eschew argumentation altogether and instead assure their adversaries that their objections will we allayed if they just “open their minds”.  For example, one user told me, “You need to open your mind to the truth.”  This was immediately followed by a comment from Andy Schlafly stating that “People who do open their minds are amazed by the insights and happiness it brings.”  Another Conservapedia detractor was urged to “…open your mind more to other ways of thinking and you’ll see the truth for what it is.”  This is what passes for rigorous debate at Conservapedia. Read the rest of this entry »