World News Korner

Remember if you had to wipe away a tear that does not mean you are soft.

It means you are human.

And these are the kinds of stories that make me proud to be a human being.


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Courtesy of the Friendly Atheist:

Earlier this year, a third grader wrote to her state representatives asking them to make the Wooly Mammoth South Carolina’s official state fossil.

After a couple of holdups, it looked like there were no objections and the bill would go through… but the version of the bill that looks like it’ll be signed into law contains a ridiculous amendment:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

SECTION 1. Article 9, Chapter 1, Title 1 of the 1976 Code is amended by adding:

“Section 1-1-712A. The Columbian Mammoth, which was created on the Sixth Day with the other beasts of the field, is designated as the official State Fossil of South Carolina and must be officially referred to as the ‘Columbian Mammoth’, which was created on the Sixth Day with the other beasts of the field.”

That untrue, unscientific, twice-mentioned Creationist addition is the work of Sen. Kevin Bryant (a Republican, of course) who derailed the bill from the outset by trying to stick a full Bible passage in it. While that amendment was thrown out, this one somehow was accepted.

Gee look. Now South Carolina can now celebrate scientific discoveries while still adhering to antiquated superstitions.

It's like a retarded potpourri.

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I could not have said it better myself.

(Source.)

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So some of you may have read how how the CEO of the internet browser Mozzila stepped down from his job after it came to light that he had given a $1,000 contribution on support of the 2008 gay marriage ban in California.

In response Andrew Sullivan wrote a rather thoughtful piece on what he saw as the equivalence of pro-gay lynch mob:

He did not understand that in order to be a CEO of a company, you have to renounce your heresy! There is only one permissible opinion at Mozilla, and all dissidents must be purged! Yep, that’s left-liberal tolerance in a nut-shell. No, he wasn’t a victim of government censorship or intimidation. He was a victim of the free market in which people can choose to express their opinions by boycotts, free speech and the like. He still has his full First Amendment rights. But what we’re talking about is the obvious and ugly intolerance of parts of the gay movement, who have reacted to years of being subjected to social obloquy by returning the favor.

This is a repugnantly illiberal sentiment. It is also unbelievably stupid for the gay rights movement. You want to squander the real gains we have made by argument and engagement by becoming just as intolerant of others’ views as the Christianists? You’ve just found a great way to do this. It’s a bad, self-inflicted blow. And all of us will come to regret it.

I have to admit that though I frequently use the Mozilla browser, Firefox, I did not feel compelled to weigh in on this debate one way or the other.

However Greta Van Susteren felt the need to provide her two cents, not so much about what happened to Mozilla CEO and co-founder Brendan Eich, but rather how irritating it was the Sullivan was now being celebrated for his defense of free speech.

Here is her headline:

Andrew Sullivan, is now the Free Speech guy? Free speech should include at least an effort at NO SLANDER yet he felt it was ok, when it advanced his career, to slander a mother by saying obsessively that she should PROVE she is the mother of her special needs child! Yes, a bully! What a world we live in, huh?

Oh yeah, she went there.

And because she went there could the Wasilla Wendigo be far behind?

Aww poor Sarah, bullied by the big bad openly gay blogger, who is now receiving accolades for defending those he feels are being denied their right to free speech.

Oh the humanity.

But exactly what about Sullivan's questioning of the circumstances of Trig's birth would be considered bullying? Here is what he said on June 13, 2011:

It seems to me we have two options. It’s possible that Palin simply made up her drama of labor, or exaggerated it for effect, when in fact it was a routine, if rare, pregnancy, and she had mild warnings that the birth may be premature, and she gussied that up into a tall tale of her pioneer spirit, guided by her doctor, who refused to take the NYT’s calls as soon as Palin hit the big time. I think that’s the likeliest explanation, given the sheer world-historical weirdness of the alternative.

But it’s also possible that she never had that baby at all. I mean, if you read the emails and independent reports above and were asked if this woman were in labor with a special needs child, and that her water had already broken, would you believe it? Just put all the facts in front of you and ask yourself that question.

So she is either a self-serving drama queen who didn’t realize her story would imply she put her child – and many others on the planes – at great risk and then winged it to make her story more plausible; or she is a fantastic hoaxer and liar at a world class meshugana level that, at some point, will make Weinergate look like a damp squib.

To my mind, either option makes her unfit for high office, which is all you need to know really. And the fact that she has never been asked about this by any MSM journalist tells you so so much about what motivates the DC press corps. It’s certainly not curiosity.

That is not bullying, that is simply good reporting. Something that his fellow journalists completely failed to do.

And, as we all know, he was not at all wrong to pursue this story.

Because only one month later we provided the smoking gun that would demonstrate that Sarah Palin lied about her pregnancy in any court in the land.

So yes, Andrew Sullivan is a defender of free speech. And no, he is NOT a bully.

But I know somebody who is.




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Courtesy of TPM:

Republican Senate candidate Jack Kingston has released a new ad featuring a fake call from President Barack Obama telling him to "back off Obamacare."

The 15-second spot, posted on Georgia Rep. Kingston's YouTube page, includes a voicemail from the faux president, with photos of Obama in the background.

"Uh, Kingston. This is the president," says the voice. "You gotta back off Obamacare. You voted 40 times to defund it, you demanded I sign up. Kingston. Let me be clear. I do not want you in the Senate."

Seriously?

Apparently Kingston struggling to win the nomination, and is facing a number of challengers, some of who accused him of not fighting hard enough against Obamacare.

Well this totally fabricated phone call should put those accusations to rest. Don'tcha think?

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Courtesy of MIT Technology Review:

Back in 1990, about 8 percent of the U.S. population had no religious preference. By 2010, this percentage had more than doubled to 18 percent. That’s a difference of about 25 million people, all of whom have somehow lost their religion.

That raises an obvious question: how come? Why are Americans losing their faith?

Today, we get a possible answer thanks to the work of Allen Downey, a computer scientist at the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, who has analyzed the data in detail. He says that the demise is the result of several factors but the most controversial of these is the rise of the Internet. He concludes that the increase in Internet use in the last two decades has caused a significant drop in religious affiliation.

Of course there are other factors in the study as well, including fewer parents introducing religion to their children, and a slight increase in college enrollments.

However the correlation between increased internet access and decreased religious affiliation is dramatic and compelling.

When I first started The Immoral Minority it was to provide a space to talk openly about politics and religion, the two things my former wife used to tell me "should not be discussed in polite society."

At the time there only seemed to be a handful of places where religion was discussed with any regularity, but in the almost ten years of this blog's existence that has dramatically increased.

Today you can get into a spirited debate, and access reams of information about religion, mythologies, and the history of various beliefs, on numerous sites, such as the Huffington Post, Reddit, Salon, Daily Beast, you name it.

This allows people, even small towns and isolated areas of the country, to have their eyes opened to things that their parents or the leaders in their communities simply do not want them to know.

Of course I see this as wonderful and it gives me great hope for the future. It is safe to say that others do not see it this way.

In places like Saudi Arabia and Iran they dramatically limit access to the internet in hopes of controlling access to information that would undermine religious faith and promote ideas about equality and human rights.

I would not be at all surprised to see similar attempts to control information in this country, since access to information threatens those who thrive on the ignorance of their parishioners, constituents, or party members.

Personally I would be pleased to think that IM had any impact on a visitor's religious outlook and inspired them to do their own research and question the foundation of their faith.

In my opinion knowing more, thinking more, and discussing more can only lead to greater understanding and a better country.



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Courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

Jacobs: Arming everybody on posts seems to be a very foolish stance..(Lott tries to cut in) No, be quiet. A very foolish response (The colonel) to a problem that needs a solution, (You make hyperbole here) but this is not the solution. Please, don't be rude..

Lott: No, earlier you were talking about...

Jacobs: Please. Don't Be Rude.

Savanna: let him finish his statement.

Jacobs: Be quiet. Arming everybody on posts and the intended danger in doing that is not a solution to protect the lives of people who serve and sacrifice for us. Now you can say what you want to say.

The portion of the conversation not contained in the above clip, and to which the pro-gun "researcher" is referring, is also worth noting:

Jacobs: Well there are several issues here, the first is whom do you arm, Do you arm wives, dependents? It's absolutely a ludicrous suggestion. The situation at Fort Hood the other day in the circumstance in which everyone had weapons could very easily result and probably would have resulted in enormous mass fratricide and you would have this all the time.

Second problem revolves around the notion that civilian life, or military life on a civilian post is just like combat.

The third point revolves around the notion that the shooter values his own life more than he does carrying out what he's going to carry out and therefore he's not going to do it if everybody else is armed. Complete nonsense.

Well said, and completely correct in my opinion.

Many of these mass shooters are on a suicide mission. It does not concern them one bit that they will be shot, in fact they expect it. And if it does not happen, as we have seen time and time again, they are perfectly happy to kill themselves.

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