Hobby Hypocrisy Lobby

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Gene Howington

800px-HobbyLobbyStowOhioby GENE HOWINGTON

Good art is at a fundamental level about honest expression.  Business?  Not so much.  Especially in the case of Hobby Lobby it appears.  The Christian-owned craft supply chain, were so morally offended by the idea of having to include emergency contraceptives and intrauterine devices in their health insurance plans that they sued the Obama administration over the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that insurers must provide these options.  Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, (No. 13-354), is currently before the Supreme Court. Litigation is not cheap. Litigation all the way to SCOTUS considerable business litigation expense over what is at its core a personal religious conviction of the owners – the Green family – that by extension they seek to force upon their employees by denying them access to insurance to cover said contraception methods.  In their complaint, Hobby Lobby details the great lengths they go to “avoid entanglements with objectionable companies.” This zealously pious tendency – which is perfectly within their rights as individuals – apparently doesn’t extend to their investment strategies.  Molly Redden at Mother Jones has discovered that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan holds more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions and in two health insurance companies that cover surgical abortions, abortion drugs, and emergency contraception in many of the health care policies they sell.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “hypocrisy” means “[t]he practice of claiming to have higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case.”

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Posted in Christianity, Civil Liberties, Constitutional Law, Fundamentalism, Health Care, Health Care Insurance, Hypocrisy, Jurisprudence, Religion, SCOTUS | 70 Comments

Them Bones: 3-D Printing

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Gene Howington
plastic skull

Plastic Skull

by GENE HOWINGTON

In a stunning demonstration of the positive side of the development of 3-D (a.k.a. additive) printing technology, a team of innovative Dutch surgeons led by Dr. Bon Verweij with the help of Australian prosthetic company Anatomics have “replaced” a human skull with a plastic prosthetic skull.  Three months ago, the surgeons working at University Medical Center Utrecht performed a 23 hour operation to correct problems a young woman was having due to thickening of her cranium caused by a rare bone disease. The pressure created by her excess bone growth – which had increased the thickness of her skull walls from the normal 1.5 centimeters thick to 5 centimeters (almost 2 inches) thick – was causing the unnamed 22 year-old woman to have severe headaches, go blind and have increasing problems with her motor skills.

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Posted in 3-D Printing, Australia, Biology, Chemistry, Health Care, Medical Technology, Netherlands, Science, Technology, United States | 9 Comments

Ku Klux Klan Distributes Fliers in Virginia…Insists It’s Not a Hate Group

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

Ku_Klux_Klan_Virgina - CopyBY ELAINE MAGLIARO

Two weeks ago, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported a story about the Ku Klux Klan distributing fliers in several neighborhoods in Chesterfield County, Virginia. The fliers—which were said to contain a hotline number, an email address, and two websites where people can learn more about the KKK—were left in people’s driveways and yards. The fliers proclaimed that the KKK was nonviolent, not a hate group—and not “enemies of the colored and mongrel races.”

One of the distributed fliers said, however, that “many people have experienced the blacks firsthand” and have seen the “savagery and animalism in many of these people.” According to the KKK fliers, the mission of the organization is “exalting the Caucasian race and teaching the doctrine of white supremacy.”

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Posted in Racism, Society, United States | Tagged , | 45 Comments

UPDATE: A Fundamental Understanding

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Gene Howington

by GENE HOWINGTON

Critics have pointed to another possible explanation of the gravitational waves detected by BICEP2: phase changes after inflation as the early universe started to cool. As reported by the Physics arXiv Blog:

But today, James Dent at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a couple of pals say the BICEP2 team has overlooked something. They say one possibility is that the polarisation of the cosmic microwave background was indeed caused by gravitational waves just as the BICEP2 team claim, but that these waves formed after inflation, not before it.

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Posted in Astronomy/Astrophysics, Cosmology, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Science | 5 Comments

Fred Phelps: A Minister Who Sowed the Seeds of Hatred

Posted on March 23, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

WestboroChurchPicketersBY ELAINE MAGLIARO

I’m sure readers of this blog are aware of the death of Fred Phelps, founder of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. Phelps, who was an ordained Baptist minister and a disbarred Kansas lawyer, was said to have passed away just before midnight last Wednesday. NPR’s Nathan Rott reported, “Phelps made a name for himself by protesting military and high-profile funerals. He’d wave hateful signs with members of his Westboro Baptist Church and proclaim that the U.S. was being punished for its tolerance of homosexuality.”

After reading Tom Junod’s article A Tale of Two Freds: Happy Birthday and Go to Hell at Esquire’s Politics Blog last week, I began to think about the worst thing that Phelps had done during his lifetime. As terrible as his hate-filled protests at the funerals of veterans were, I think there is something he did that was even more malicious and evil. And that would be sowing the seeds of hatred in the young children of his small congregation.

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Posted in Christianity, Homosexual Rights, Religion | Tagged , | 15 Comments

It’s Friday!: Time for Another Mark Fiore Video…and a Video of Anti-Sceince Legislator Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

The following Mark Fiore House Science & Ladyparts Committee video is from August 2012. It’s a bit outdated—but much of it still holds true today. It’s also one of my favorites!

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Posted in Astronomy/Astrophysics, Biology, Conservatives, Cosmology, Creationism/Intelligent Design, Politics, Science | Tagged | 1 Comment

A Fundamental Understanding

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Gene Howington
WMAP image of the CBM

WMAP image of the CMB

by GENE HOWINGTON

“I am large, I contain multitudes.” – Walt Whitman

Our understanding of the universe changed in a fundamental and exciting way this week when the results of the BICEP2 experiment were revealed. It all revolves around something known as B-mode polarization, a signal in the cosmic microwave background radiation.  The CMB is the thermal radiation assumed to be left over from the “Big Bang” of cosmology. These signals are important because they reveal information about the state of the universe before it was directly visually observable. One must keep in mind that astronomy is a kind of time machine and that when we observe the universe we are looking back in time. In “Watchmen”, the character Doctor Manhattan notes that “All we ever see of stars is their old photographs.” The truly staggering physical scale of the universe combined with the speed of light is what makes this so. The universe is so large, it actually takes about eight minutes for the light from the sun to reach Earth. But if optical observations of the oldest stars and galaxies is analogous to “baby pictures” of the universe, then observing the cosmic background radiation is like looking at an ultrasound. However, the results of BICEP2 pull information out of that background radiation that is probably more analogous to a pregnancy test, revealing information about the very first infinitesimally tiny moments of creation when the universe was far less than one-trillionth of a second old.

Alan Guth

Alan Guth

It tells us, if confirmed, that the inflation model of cosmology proposed in 1980 by physicists Alan Guth and Andrei Linde is right. BICEP2 detected patterns, a gravitational wave, of polarization in the CMB that are a direct result of quantum gravitational fluctuations that occur even in vacuum. This not only illustrates quantum fluctuation and confirms predictions made by the inflation model of the early universe, it also has other implications. Implications that I find truly wondrous and awesome – in the original meaning of that word – and far more substantial than the (at least one) Nobel Prize this fundamental discovery will lead to.

Implications philosophical, sublime and profound.

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Posted in Astronomy/Astrophysics, Cosmology, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Science | 20 Comments

New Media Alert: Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Gene Howington

Slashdot is reporting that superstar statistician Nate Silver has officially launched his own website (another WordPress blog) call fivethirtyeight.com.  If you’re a fan of applied mathematics and/or infomatics or just really interested in the numbers behind the news, it is well worth your time.  As Hugh Pickens said when referring the story to Slashdot:

After a parting of ways with the New York Times after calling 50 out of 50 states right in the 2012 elections, Nate Silver has relaunched FiveThirtyEight as a website dedicated to data journalism under the auspices of ESPN. Silver has expanded his staff from two full-time journalists to 20 and instead of focusing on politics exclusively FiveThirtyEight’s coverage will span five major subject areas — politics, economics, science, life and sports. According to Silver, his team has a broad set of skills and experience in methods that fall under the rubric of data journalism including statistical analysis, data visualization, computer programming and data-literate reporting. ‘One of our roles will be to critique incautious uses of statistics when they arise elsewhere in news coverage. At other times, we’ll explore ways that consumers can use data to their advantage and level the playing field against corporations and governments.’

Check it out.  It’s good stuff.  Numbers often reveal a truth otherwise unseen.  I was so impressed, I’m considering adding a blogroll widget just to list the site.

Posted in Economics, Government, Media, Political Science, Politics, Propaganda, Society | Tagged | 22 Comments

Just for Fun on Friday a Mark Fiore Political Cartoon Video: Jack Gerard’s American Petroleum Institute

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

POSTED BY ELAINE MAGLIARO

From Mark Fiore’s website:

Keystone XL and tar sands oil are emissions-free wonders that will do everything good you ever thought possible.  (At least according to the American Petroleum Institute.)  Let’s take a look at the organization that has been lobbying their heart out to get Keystone XL approved.

The environmental review process and the recent announcement by the State Department help reveal the behind-the-scenes work of the American Petroleum Institute.  This group is headed by Jack Gerard.  You know, the guy who used to head the National Mining Association and the American Chemistry Council.  (Chemicals, coal, oil, it’s all the same to ol’ Jack.)  Dig a little deeper and you find that API has been spying on environmental groups (okay, paying for “intel“) and has a member-company giving environmental advice to the State Department.

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Posted in Chemistry, United States | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Just for Fun on Friday a Mark Fiore Political Cartoon Video: Jack Gerard’s American Petroleum Institute

The Ninth Post in the “Oh My Achin’ Head” Series: Right-Wing Pastor Claims Disney’s Animated Movie “Frozen” Might Be a Satanic Push to Turn Kids Gay

Posted on March 13, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

BY ELAINE MAGLIARO

Kevin Swanson is a pastor and host of the radio show Religious Right. According to Right Wing Watch, Swanson recently “railed against the animated film Frozen” and accused Disney “of using the movie to turn children gay.” Sawnson told his co-host Steve Vaughn that Satan was using the movie “to indoctrinate my 5-year-old to be a lesbian.”

Disney’s Frozen Official Trailer

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Posted in Animation, Christianity, Movies, Music, Religion | Tagged | 5 Comments