dankster312's Xanga

And the award from the most ignorant guy of the day

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:37:04 GMT

Goes to this man.

"Marine reservist Jasen Bruce was getting clothes out of the trunk of his car Monday evening when a bearded man in a robe approached him.

That man, a Greek Orthodox priest named Father Alexios Marakis, speaks little English and was lost, police said. He wanted directions.

What the priest got instead, police say, was a tire iron to the head. Then he was chased for three blocks and pinned to the ground — as the Marine kept a 911 operator on the phone, saying he had captured a terrorist.

Police say Bruce offered several reasons to explain his actions:

The man tried to rob him.

The man grabbed Bruce's crotch and made an overt sexual advance in perfect English.

The man yelled "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," the same words some witnesses said the Fort Hood shooting suspect uttered last week.

"That's what they tell you right before they blow you up," police say Bruce told them.

Bruce ended up in jail, accused of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He was released Tuesday on $7,500 bail. Marakis ended up at the hospital with stitches. He told the police he didn't want to press charges, espousing biblical forgiveness.

But Tuesday, Bruce wasn't saying sorry."

The entire article is fascinating. This guy really needs to removed from any position that gives him a weapon or the slightest bit of authority.

Moments in U.S. history that happened on my birthday

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:12:42 GMT

I just thought this was an interesting list:

Abraham Lincoln was born
Utah became the first state to give women the right to vote
The NAACP was founded
San Francisco became the first U.S. city to issue marriage licenses to gay couples

(making it a slightly more random list, it was also the day that Charles Darwin was born*, the day that the Viet Cong first released U.S. prisoners of war, and the day Clinton was acquitted in his impeachment trial)

Just thought I'd share.

* Yes, I know he's not American, but I still think he has been very significant in American history.

I've been telling people for years that Baby Einstein makes kids dumber

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:48:02 GMT

Now we finally have the company owning up to it.

The great Baby Einstein scam

"The New York Times reported Thursday that Disney is offering a refund to buyers of its ubiquitous "Baby Einstein" videos, which did not, as promised, turn babies into wunderkinds. Apparently, all those puppets, bright colors, and songs were what we had feared all along—a mind-numbing way to occupy infants."

And, as I've said many times, the biggest issue with the show is the fact that kids that little should not be watching any television at all. They need real interactions, with real people who react back to them.

"According to the article, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two years old stay away from watching screens. In the letter threatening Disney with a class-action lawsuit for "deceptive advertising," public health lawyers hired by Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood cited a study which found a link between early television exposure and later problems with attention span."

Don't forget - studies show (although they weren't quoted directly here) that kids who watch Baby Einstein end up dumber than kids who don't. You have to spend that time actually being a parent.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:01:55 GMT

Safe

When we were young
innocent with hope
and unwise in the ways of the world
We heard His still small voice
Radical dreams were whispered in our ears
We knew we could be different

Now we are older and wise in the ways of the world
We listen again to the still small voice
It tells us to find good jobs
                  marry kind spouses
                  make comfortable homes
                  raise safe children
                  save enough money

Is that His voice we hear?
Or have our lives
become so wise
that we forgot how to be still?

A tale of two polls...why not all soundbites are equal

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:58:00 GMT

A week ago, the New England Journal of Medicine reported the results of a poll that should have had a great influence on the health care debate:

73% of doctors support the public option

However, just a few days later Investor's Business Daily was able to respond with a poll that gave many people the opposite feeling:

Two-thirds of practicing physicians oppose ObamaCare

Now, which one to believe? For some news agencies, they claim they don't know what to believe. Other people (right-wing blogs, I'm talking to you) immediately believe the one that agrees with them - the IBD poll was thrown around the internet far quicker than the NEJM poll. However, there are objective ways for us to see which one is correct.

First of all, consider the source. The New England Journal of Medicine is the oldest medical journal in the world. It was founded by and is run by doctors. Presumably, it wants what's best for doctors. Investor's Business Daily, on the other hand, is owned by a stocks expert and routinely publishes right-wing editorials. It was explicitly founded for wealthy investors, and wants what's best for them. Earlier this year, they claimed that if Stephen Hawking was British, then the British health care system would have left him for dead long ago. Except that Stephen Hawking is British, and owes his life to the British health care system. So they've already proven that they will make stuff up out of nowhere to make their case.

Second of all, consider the methodology. The NEJM published a full paper on their poll. They got got a random sample from a database that included all the physicians in the United States, excluded the ones from U.S. territories and the ones who were still in training, and published full data on the internal figures for the ones who did reply. IBD, on the other hand, only used half as many doctors in their poll. They won't say how they chose the physicians in their poll, they won't put out any of the internal figures, at least one of the questions is clearly biased, and they claim "results are still coming in", which means that they're publishing the results of an incomplete poll. Nate Silver, an expert on evaluating polls, wrote an article on why IBD polls in general, and this one in particular, are not the least bit trustworthy. It might as well have been made up by Glenn Beck.

Unfortunately, very little of this information will reach people. The biggest fear-mongerers will spread the poll that agrees with their fear-mongering, and a few more people will be scared into not supporting a good idea. This is why I really do not like the direction that political discourse is going.

Economic Report on George W. Bush Years

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:11:12 GMT

In 1993, despite an ongoing recession, Bill Clinton passed an adjustment to the tax code that raised taxes on the wealthy slightly, while lowering them for lower-income taxpayers. Over the next 8 years, the economy improved, government revenues increased, and the United States had a budget surplus for the first time in 20 years.

In 2001, using the current budget surplus as an excuse, George W. Bush passed a major tax cut that primarily benefited the wealthy. Many conservatives said that this would stimulate the economy and lead to greater government revenue. Instead, there was a recession. In 2003, George W. Bush passed another major tax cut that primarily benefited the wealthy, once again claiming that this is what was needed to stimulate the economy and increase government revenue.

Here's the report on the results of the George W. Bush years:

"Under Clinton, the median income increased 14 per cent. Under Bush it declined 4.2 per cent."

"Under Clinton the total number of Americans in poverty declined 16.9 per cent; under Bush it increased 26.1 per cent. "

"Under Clinton the number of children in poverty declined 24.2 per cent; under Bush it increased by 21.4 per cent."

"Under Clinton, the number of Americans without health insurance, remained essentially even (down six-tenths of one per cent); under Bush it increased by 20.6 per cent."

And all those numbers all occurred before the full results of the recent economic collapse were felt...

And if you think those numbers are an aberration, I'll remind you that they reflect the same trends that we've been seeing for Democratic and Republican presidencies for the last 60 years.

Monday, September 07, 2009

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 19:45:48 GMT

In the summer of 1660, an Englishman named William Harrison vanished on a walk, near the village of Charingworth, in Gloucestershire. His bloodstained hat was soon discovered on the side of a local road. Police interrogated Harrison’s servant, John Perry, and eventually Perry gave a statement that his mother and his brother had killed Harrison for money. Perry, his mother, and his brother were hanged.

Two years later, Harrison reappeared. He insisted, fancifully, that he had been abducted by a band of criminals and sold into slavery. Whatever happened, one thing was indisputable: he had not been murdered by the Perrys....

Since 1976, more than a hundred and thirty people on death row have been exonerated. DNA testing, which was developed in the eighties, saved seventeen of them, but the technique can be used only in rare instances. Barry Scheck, a co-founder of the Innocence Project, which has used DNA testing to exonerate prisoners, estimates that about eighty per cent of felonies do not involve biological evidence.

Here is the story of one man who never got the chance to be one of those 130:

Trial by Fire: Did Texas execute an innocent man?

Ugh....I really didn't want to do one of these again...

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:53:23 GMT

Back on October 10th of last year, I wrote about the increasing violence implied in hate-filled messages at campaign events. Back then, words like "treason", "terrorist", "socialist", "hooligan", "commie faggot", "kill him", and anti-Black epithets were being shouted at campaign events by those who opposed Barack Obama. Unfortunately, a clear election victory and the failure of their apocalyptic predictions does not seem to have tempered the hate.

It started with those who claimed that Obama is not the true president because he wasn't born in the United States. While the theories are silly, polls show that the majority of Republicans and Southerners answer either "not sure" or "no" when asked whether they believe that Obama was born in America. Among White Southerners, the number is even higher. Even U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators have helped keep the rumors brewing.

At the same time, rumors are also being spread about what Obama is doing to the country. Sarah Palin insinuated that he would form death panels that would decide that her 4-year-old son and parents weren't worthy of life. Glenn Beck of Fox News has stated that Obama has a "deep-seated hatred for White people" and might use "FEMA camps" for protestors as we "head towards a totalitarian state". Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and other commentators have compared him to Adolf Hitler, which is now being repeated by local GOP sites and protestors.

So where could this all lead? Earlier this year a Homeland Security report that had been initiated by Bush warned of a potential danger in the rise of "rightwing extremist activity", and the Southern Poverty Law Center has confirmed that the number of hate groups in America has been on the rise for several years. The potential for violence is frightening. The day after Obama was inaugurated, a white supremacist worried about the "demise of the white race" murdered two immigrants and attempted to murder a third. The Holocaust Museum murderer was a White Supremacist and a fan of the anti-Obama "birther" movement. The man who killed an abortion doctor inside a church earlier this year was part of an anti-abortion group and said more violence was planned. The man who killed three police officers in Pittsburgh was afraid that Obama was going to take away his guns. The "birther" movement against Obama also includes noted White Supremicist groups like VDARE, Stormfront, and the Council of Conservative Citizens.

Could the violence extend to Obama? Talk show hosts and even a U.S. Senator are blaming Obama for the violence because they say his policies scare people. One of the Obama-is-Hitler guys at a town hall meeting stated "I'd take a gun to Washington if enough of you would come with me". Congressmen are receiving death threats against Obama with more Hitler comparisons, a health-care protestor in Maryland carried a sign reading "Death to Obama" and "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids", and it has been reported that the number of potential presidential death threats investigated by the Secret Service has increased by a factor of four since Obama took office. A man arrested trespassing inside a high school where Obama was going to speak had a loaded gun in his car. One of the gun-toting protestors at a New Hampshire Obama event carried a sign that said, "It's time to water the tree of liberty", a Thomas Jefferson quote referring to the necessity of the killing of tyrants and martyrdom of patriots. The display of guns at Obama events was organized by a former associate of the Viper Militia, a 1990s anti-government group that stockpiled weapons and took an oath to "engage in mortal combat against enemies of the U.S. Constitution". A Republican candidate for office in Virginia called for resistance to Obama's agenda, said she was "at war", and declared, "We have a chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box". The man who brought an assault rifle to an Obama event in Arizona had just attended a sermon where his pastor had preached that he was going to "pray for Obama to die and go to hell" and said that Obama "should get the death penalty".

There are always crazies who want to do crazy things. But this time around, there are people in government and the media who are really feeding them, and the crazies seem to be much more prevalent and more bold than they usually are. This has to stop. If it doesn't, more people will die.

The Guns of August

On the current health care debate....

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:10:16 GMT

1) We should do what we can to make sure everyone has access to decent health care. I don't mean "can go to an emergency room when they're extremely ill". I mean that they can get the kind of care they need to have healthy lives. If we don't think that it's the government's job to do that, then we better figure out someone else who can quick, because it's hard to think of a more basic thing that God wants us to do for other people.

2) Our current system is terrible. The United States spends more money per person on health care than any other nation on Earth, yet we are about 35th to 45th in the world in infant mortality,under-5 mortality, and life expectancy.

3) We need to do something about health care costs. Health care costs are 1/6th of our economy and are increasing at twice the rate of inflation. Medicare currently spends more money than it takes in and will become insolvent by the year 2019.

4) Insurance companies have resorted to inexcusable evil in order to save costs. Surveys suggest that up to 12 million Americans have been denied health insurance due to preexisting conditions, and Congressional testimony this summer found that three companies alone had cut 20,000 seriously ill patients off of their coverage for mistakes as simple as typos on their application forms, and that insurance companies had a policy of carefully reviewing the applications of anyone who got seriously ill to see if there was an excuse they could make to cut off their insurance.

5) The idea that any of the proposed health care plans include "death panels" is an evil lie, and those propagating such lies have to answer to God for that. They are purposely trying to lie in order to paint others as murderous and to prevent poorer people than themselves from getting health care coverage. The idea that these plans aim to implement a single-payer system, will force people off private insurance onto a government plan, will cover undocumented immigrants, or will ration health care are also lies.

So yeah. Everyone should get health care, our current system sucks, we can't trust the good will of private insurance companies, and lying is bad. If you think these points have validity, please try to share them with as many people as possible.

Cites:

1) Isaiah 58, Matthew 25, Luke 10, and far more other verses than I can list

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

3) http://www.kaiseredu.org/topics_im.asp?imID=1&parentID=61&id=358 and http://www.actuary.org/pdf/medicare/trustees_08.pdf

4) http://burgess.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=133537, http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/17/business/fi-rescind17, and http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/new-survey-finds-12-million-americans-denied-coverage-insurance-industry

5) http://factcheck.org/2009/08/palin-vs-obama-death-panels/, http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/government-run-health-care/, http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hfODLR0wl7aBmaQ38Za6eyzLJ9hQD9A6AE0G2

Imagine this scenario...

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 03:36:58 GMT

(this one is especially for Michelle)

Imagine that you are placed in a room with 11 other people, including me, in order to debate an important matter. Due to ill-advised passivity, yours truly is placed in charge. One way or another, you and all the rest will stay in that room until we all agree, and I'm directing the flow of conversation. How long could you hold out?

I think I was made for this situation. I should figure out a way to do this professionally.

And the answer, by the way, is five hours.