March 17, 2008
good to know, good to know...
We've all heard about the economic collapse that would be necessarily mandated by the changes to our lifestyle that would prevent the extinction of our species. So the EPA ran the numbers. It's pretty horrifly stuff.
Basically, they found in the next 22 years we'll grow by 1% less. Instead of 81% growth, we'll only experience 80% growth. That means that I'll be giving up US$355 (at my current salary) just to make sure the planet remains habitable! That's over half of my projected rebate. By the gods, that can't stand...
Posted by Andrew at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2007
It's only class warfare when the poor do it to the rich
So: congress creates C-Span so that US Citizens can keep an eye on our government. Cable companies are mandated to carry it.
Flash forward to 2007. Comcast is now only offering C-Span to people with a digital box. Those boxes cost extra money, and require an upgraded subscription. Money.
In order to keep an eye on your government, you need to be part of the "owns a recent TV and can afford the extra cash for a digital subscription. Barriers to entry...
Posted by Andrew at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2007
The headline says it all:
Boom Times for Dentists, but Not for Teeth
We Americans are paying more for dentistry and getting less. We're paying more for all sorts of medicine, and getting less for our money. What's wrong here? If the market is broken, of course, we can ask our government to fix it...
Posted by Andrew at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2007
Real True Christianity.
So, there’s this guy. He is homeless, looks.. bad. He stands outside my workplace (supermarket) with his cup. I make just enough money to keep me from standing next to him...
While it is true that I did eventually come to recognize my nonbelief in Christianity, I did receive 4 years of Catholic education. Things like that tend to stick with you. Things like this: "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' It’s the part that makes me want to do more. So I do the most I can; I look that man in the eye and smile at him, acknowledging our common humanity...
Two days ago I saw a man do more than that. He (the customer) came into my store, bought a sandwich and some juice, and gave it to the homeless man. I don’t know if anyone can call themselves Christian if they’ve never done that...
A better person wouldn’t seek to contrast that behavior with the behavior of the man in yesterday’s news. I have, however, long wondered what “speaking out against” gays, Teletubbies, pagans, feminists, ect have to do with the basic requirements of neighborliness...
Posted by Andrew at 10:23 AM | Comments (1)
March 20, 2007
Rape isn't about sex
So, girl and guy go out, have a good time, guy tries to drug girl. This is a sadly common story. Uncommonly, this guy got caught by his bartender-- and is now serving jail time...
The thing is, if this date was going well-- and by all accounts it was-- this guy was gonna get some. If not now, then perhaps next week. So why use the powder? The only reason that makes sense is if power, and not sex, was his aim...
It didn't matter how she was dressed, if she "wanted it", or whatever. This guy was going to take her. She was no longer a person to him...
Thank the gods for Hannah Bridgeman-Oxley and Karri Cormican, they've made the world a bit better...
Posted by Andrew at 01:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 29, 2006
More precious than rubies
Here is a partial list of things which have gone missing since the Republican Party took control of all the elected branches of the Federal Government:
The budget surplus
The World Trade Center
Osama bin Laden
Habeas Corpus
Our allies’ unquestioned willingness to work with us
New Orleans
The Assumption of American moral Authority
America’s ability to frighten the world’s bad guys into not being quite so bad
Low interest rate loans
A vote for any Republican is a vote for all these things. In fact, since we live in a two party system, a vote for anyone other than a Democrat is a vote for all these things. Even when they supinely bend over and allow these things, at least the Democrats don’t initiate them. Right now, that would be a huge step up...
Posted by Andrew at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2006
Shopping time.
So, welcome once more to my annual Banned book shopping list! The American Library Association has once more put out their annual list of "most challenged" books. This is a wonderful service. What they’ve failed to do is create an easy way of buying these books...
I’ve fixed that problem. Listed below are the top 10 most challenged books of 2005 with links to Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Remember: buying a banned book is penance for one venal sin. Donating a banned book to a library lets you go strait to heaven when you die. So what are you waiting for? Clicky click!
"It's Perfectly Normal" by Robie H. Harris (Amazon)
"Forever" by Judy Blume (Amazon)
"The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger (Amazon)
“The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier (Amazon)
"Whale Talk" by Chris Crutcher (Amazon)
"Detour for Emmy" by Marilyn Reynolds (Amazon)
"What My Mother Doesn't Know" by Sonya Sones (Amazon)
Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey (Amazon)
"Crazy Lady!" by Jane Leslie Conly (Amazon)
"It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families" by Robie H. Harris (Amazon)
You can find the all-time top 100 list here. Remember! "Liberty" and "Library" come from the same same root word...
Posted by Andrew at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2006
This land is Thailand
The Standard - China's Business Newspaper
I don't have any idea what to say about this. Apparently, neither does the Bush admin...
Posted by Andrew at 07:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 25, 2006
Something to think about...
14.Chances are my elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more likely this is to be true.
15 I can be somewhat sure that if I ask to see "the person in charge," I will face a person of my own sex. The higher-up in the organization the person is, the surer I can be.
read, as they say, the whole thing...
Posted by Andrew at 03:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 13, 2006
Why we still need affirmative action.
I’ve done a lot of reading over these many years about how America is finally "past" it’s racist tendencies. We don’t need affirmative action the theory goes because we no longer care about race. Now, as it happens, I have a hard time even believing that race" describes a real phenomenon. As it also happens, I’m in the distinct minority...
Racism is a word we use to describe the phenomenon of looking at another person who has certain physical differences and seeing someone who is less human than you are. It is a failure of empathy. As such it not only dehumanizes the victim, but also the perpetrator...
It took me decades to understand these signs; the point seemed self-evident. It was not self-evident to the people the signs were directed at (my parents and grandparents)—which is why they were treated like “n-----s”, rather than like cohuman beings. Perhaps some day this whole sorry species of ours will get it right. In the mean time the victims of Katrina become the victims of America—and we all deserve to burn for it...
(Mother jones link via Ezra Klein
Posted by Andrew at 12:44 PM | Comments (1)
June 02, 2006
"And their memory deserves better than Bill O'Reilly."
The guilty pleasure offered by the existence of Bill O'Reilly is simple, and understandable.99 times out of a hundred when we belly up to the Billo bar of bluster... nearly every time we partake of the movable Falafel Feast, he serves us nothing but comedy.
Farce, slapstick, unconscious self-mutilation -- the Sideshow Bob of commentators, forever stepping on the same rake, forever muttering the same grunt of inarticulate surrender, forever resuming the circle that will take him back to the same rake. The Sisyphus of morons, if you will.
But this is the 100th time out of 100.
Damn. that's... Click the link and watch the whole thing...
Posted by Andrew at 11:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 05, 2006
War on Drugs
I don’t know what appropriate drug control policy is. I do know that when I see people on drugs, I can just sort of tell they’re running from something. Drug use is symptomatic of, and usually an intensifier to, a larger problem. It’s almost never a problem in and of itself. Whatever we’ve been doing in 40+ years of drug control policy isn’t working though. Indeed, the only real result is a specialty bong cleaner
Posted by Andrew at 06:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 24, 2006
Fewer Physicians Providing Charity Care, Study Says
A report just put out by the Center for Studying Health System Change tells us that doctors are now spending less time taking care of people who are uninsured. Meanwhile the ranks the uninsured people are swelling...
Apparently, they used to do a lot more, but since the rise of HMOs and other health rationing devices doctors been making less money overall. Incentives matter, and right now our system is putting out powerful incentives to not take care of sick people. Indeed, many people in charge of creating health-rationing policy in this country are laboring under the idea that Americans simply want too much coverage, and should have even smaller access too it. If this seems nuts, there’s a good reason for it...
Let’s see: consumers are spending more and doctors are making less. Who the hell is making all the money? More importantly, who do we want to be making all the money? I’d bet your answer to the first question is different from your answer to the second. Mine sure is...
(Via Health Policy Blog, a blog you should read more often.)
Posted by Andrew at 10:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 22, 2006
Hot damn!
Oglala Sioux Tribe on the South Dakota Abortion Ban : SF Bay Area Indymedia
Well, we screwed the Indians for centuries. But thank the gods they’re still looking out for humanity—and us...
"To me, it is now a question of sovereignty," she said to me last week. "I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction."
I assume this planned parenthood clinic will have an abortion center, though it is worth pointing out that this is not _all_ that panned parenthood does...
Posted by Andrew at 06:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 01, 2005
Blog against Racism
“What’s your ancestry? What’s your background, what are you?” This sort of question gets asked as a normal part of the getting to know you phase of many friendships. I’m never sure how to react. My ancestors are from many parts of Europe, mostly Italy (sorry dad) Sicily and Germany. But I’ve never felt the urge to have efficient sex or dominate the world, so obviously knowing about my German grandparent’s isn’t going to do anything. I don’t know any Italian stereotypes, so perhaps I fit those. What I do know is that I value justice; I tell people that my ancestral homeland is San Francisco...
I am what is known as “mixed race”, Italian and German. And a bit of other European things. I know, I know, that all falls under “White”, which is it’s own “race”. Ha! Ask the NAZIs if their Italian allies were the same race! And it’s not as if Mussolini didn’t make grandiose speeches about the “Italian” race. But to the KKK I’m a part of the “white” race, and that seems like a good enough definition for most of America...
Is it not obvious to everyone that “race” is a cultural construct? It has exactly the power and definition we give it. We-- and I include all of humanity—seem fixated on these arbitrary distinctions. We love to create “in” groups and make everyone else outside. It is no accident that the Japanese word Gijin and the Greek word barbarian have the same connotations of ugliness. And they both mean the same thing “those who are not us”...
The question is then: How do we go about constructing a culture which does not notice race? I have no idea. Perhaps we can’t do it; we’re certainly not on a path to do so. I think it will take conscious effort and decades of work. Barring that, if only little green men would be so obliging as to invade...
Posted by Andrew at 09:49 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 15, 2005
Why Self-Proclaimed "Fundamentalists" Scare Me:
"We put warning labels on cigarette packs because we know that smoking takes one to two years off the average life span, yet we 'celebrate' a lifestyle that we know spreads every kind of sexually transmitted disease and takes at least 20 years off the average life span according to the 2005 issue of the revered scientific journal Psychological Reports," Rev. Bill Banuchi, executive director of the New York Christian Coalition told the Mid Hudson News.
Even if we take him metaphorically (IE, assume that he doesn't actually want to employ the same labeling system pioneered by the German NAZI party), we are still left with a fairy silly statement...
To whit: Rev. Banuchi is claiming that we "celebrate" gay sex, rather than try to forget that gays actually have sex. He further postulates that gay men and gay women are equally likely to suffer all sorts of diseases-- something which is patently untrue. Indeed, I think Girl on Girl sex is* probably the single safest sex 2 or more humans can engage in. Men, on the other hand, can transmit germs around quite nicely...
Also, why are Psychological Reports being revered? And why exactly is a Psychological Journal making points about life expectancy and STD rates? Shouldn�t it be concentrating on the, um, psychology?
Anyway, this man seriously needs to loose some followers. Alas, he'll probably be able to determine the direction of at least one congressional seat...
*no, not going there. Get your mind out of the gutter!
Posted by Andrew at 04:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
March 11, 2004
That sounds like Rock and/or Roll
Daily News Online - News and Commentary
Part of the problem with the Virginity movement is that it presupposes Virginity as a worthy and important thing. Perhaps I'll feel different about this when I have kids, but I disagree pretty vehemently. Sex is normal, and healthy; human. Encouraging mental and physical health around it should be our number one goal...
What abstinence programs instead promote is a regime which (given that they tell budding adults to deny one of the very things which makes them human) is explicitly unhealthy. Treating sex as though it were inherently sinful is inhumane.
And the fact that they don't even work:
The study found that STD rates for whites who pledged to stay virgins was 2.8% compared with 3.5% among other teenagers. Among African-Americans, the rates were 18.1% and 20.3%. Among Hispanics, they were 6.7% and 8.6%.
No, I don't consider those results to be significant. Average Abstinent program person is only 1.27% less likely to contract an STD than the average non. In the sample size of 12,000 that translates into 153 extra STD...
Given that
Really fun was this comment:
Under US law, abstinence programmes risk losing federal funding if they stray into the realm of sex education. Church-based abstinence programmes are openly hostile to condoms and preach that they do not guard against disease.
That sound you hear is me smacking my head against the wall. If condoms are 70% effective (and I think they are closer to 90%...) then teaching students that they are not effective is just a lie. And that lie is putting students at risk. At the very least, the curriculum must be revamped. Perhaps we can scrap it altogether...Posted by Andrew at 09:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack