Michele Bachmann makes me sick to my stomach

[jazznut85.livejournal.com]

Watching one of the shows in the late afternoon/early evening on cable TV, a panel discussion on a certain topic made me seriously sick to my stomach, but also made me wonder how anyone not affiliated with the Tea Party, the Nazis, or the Westboro Baptist Church would even entertain, for one second, voting for a loon like Michele Bachman. Before I launch into this little diatribe, I will present some background on myself.

I am a 25-year old heterosexual male hailing from a small town on the east side of Washington state, just about 10 miles down the freeway to the Idaho border. I am an agnostic with a deep respect for atheists. Before this, though, I was an extreme conservative, Tea Party supporter who typically would vote straight down the traditional Republican line. I also was raised Catholic, a practicing Christian as an adult who, at one point, even would listen to Christian music exclusively and once worked at a Christian radio station in town. Eventually, I begun researching and "soul searching" if you will, realizing that what I was being fed from all the things I just mentioned were turning me into a hateful person that I, myself, wanted nothing to do with. This, coming from a family who taught me to love all and support this notion accordingly. I am an ex-Christian, liberal (maybe progressive) who, before I allowed myself to be brainwashed starting in college, was a proud member of the Gay/Straight Alliance at my high school. Nowadays, I am a proud Gay ally and aspiring activist for gay rights. Oh yeah, and I listen to NPR not just for my news and commentary, but also to be introduced to new bands and authors.

ANYWAYS, back to what I was going to say. This afternoon, a pundit I was watching led off with the discovery that Michele Bachman is a part owner of her husband's business which....are you ready for this...provides "therapy" to people who, or parents that want their children to be reprogrammed, reconditioned and "cured" of their homosexuality!

I knew from the get-go that Bachman, like Huckabee, is known, first and foremost, to be the biggest of social conservatives than any other candidate that has run in an election nationally in the last twenty years. But while Huckabee is just a garden variety Bible Thumper, this revelation over Bachman is absolute hate. Contrary to what she and her husband believe, not to mention what any given Bible-following place of worship preaches, homosexuality is not something that a person chooses. Also, studies that have been done on such "therapy," which were the kinds of tactics that the Nazis used back during their first reign of horror, have been shown to cause serious brain damage and even bring about suicidal tendencies.

Here's an article on this.

Worst of all, when called on the carpet on such things, Bachmann dodged the question completely by saying something to the effect of "I am running for president of the United States," and some crap about how she's just running a business. They're running a business alright, but they've also received a six-figure sum of government funds to run their brainwashing operation.

Tax Cut? What the hell does that mean anyway

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

So, there has been quite a bit of wank around here because "teh ebil Republicans" ^tm won't play nice with the Democrats and raise taxes. Then on the other side people are all like "ZOMG taxes are teh ebil and will destroy us all".


There is one little problem with all of this however. What do you mean when you say tax cut or tax increase? Is it a punitive measure to punish those you don't agree with ideologically, or is it the impact on government revenues that you are trying to get to.

If it is the first, then it is a straight forward craft to design a punitive tax measure that will make a certain group of people pay a higher percentage of their income as taxes. However there is no guarantee and not even much evidence that there is a possibility that this will lead to an actual increase in revenues, forget revenues matching what is expected by the change in rates.

If you are actually concerned with the revenues then you have an even bigger problem. None of you here, and not even any of the "Experts" out there has the slightest clue how to raise taxes right now. Even in a relatively normal economy the actual revenues have barely a 50% correspondence with supposed tax cuts or tax increases, that means that if you "cut" taxes you have just about a 50% chance of tax revenues increasing or decreasing and if you raise taxes your odds are about the same, and the amount of the deviation never bears any resemblance to the amount of the supposed cut/increase. However with the entire global economy balanced on the precipice of so many debt induced collapses even those normal rules don't apply.

So if you are relying on tax increases to "balance the budget" even in part how can you possibly achieve your goals? There is absolutely no way that you can predict what the revenue impact of a tax increase of X% will be.

Even relying on experts is problematic, especially in light of some of the more recent research on predictions...( Read more... )

In the end though please stop with the wank about it. The Republicans are not evil and the Democrats don't have your best interests at heart and nobody, not Obama, not Pelosi, not Krugman, not even the Austrian Economists I prefer really has any clue what the best path forward to prevent a catastrophic economic collapse is. Both sides are doing what they believe to be the right course of action and yes, being politicians are slimeballs looking out for their own interests before the countries or anyone else's (that goes for all of them) but that doesn't make them evil and the faster you pull your collective heads out of your asses and realize this the faster we can start having a real dialogue about real critical issues that we need to address.

Airbrushing History: Hypatia's Disciple

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The people who made the film Agora about the legendary heroine of science, Hypatia of Alexandria, did not want to make an anti-Christian movie. This is probably why they omitted key features of the history of the times. In an effort to not offend the sensibilities of people who would not watch the film in the first place, they insulted the intelligence of the audience that would view it. We can uncover the most important key event by looking at another historic figure portrayed in the film: Synesius of Cyrene, the source of much that is known about Hypatia.

( Synesius was elected to the ... )

Hacktivism is on the rise

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Interesting post about internet censorship, yesterday. So let's talk about hackers now. When you ask the hackers why they're doing what they're doing, most often they say "Because we can!" There's hardly a week without a major hacker attack these days. The new hacker groups keep popping up (and disappearing, like LulzSec recently). Some of the most prominent attacks are targeting government institutions and organizations of authority, like recently the Brazilian government and presidency, CIA, the British agency dealing with organized crime, the US senate, InfraGard (a partner of FBI), Sony, Nintendo, etc etc. Some of these attacks are about stealing corporate and personal information, others are for blackmailing politicians, others for advocating some political view. Although many are not politically motivated, those who are, are becoming more serious and better coordinated and they're taking large proportions and causing an artificially created problem.

When the now defunct LulzSecurity started their cyber attacks they began with a break-in into the X-Factor TV show in Britain, where they stole the personal data of all participants and published it online. Then they said they had done this just "for the lulz" and their actions were categorized as vandalism from some kids with too much spare time on their hands. But with time it became clear that the key word in their name is not Lulz, it's Security. And their purpose is not just having fun at someone else's expense, but spreading the idea that the term "internet security" is a utopian idea created by the IT corporations in order to make money on the naive users by selling them anti-virus software which goes kaput in a few months, then selling them new one for still more money.

( Read more... )

Why not everything is bigger in Texas:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2011/06/29/texas-town-dismisses-police-because-of-budget-crisis/

http://www.businessinsider.com/for-rick-perrys-texans-there-will-be-cuts-to-employment-and-tax-revenue-2011-7
( cut for length )

As the California budget has far less major issues with it for long-term viability than Texas's attempts to hammer the rusting kettle to keep the kettle from going boom does, I daresay that this is another round won by the blue states over the red. This again also raises the question of why Red State politicians have to resort to such desperate measures and kabuki to the point that to keep from paying any taxes whatsoever they increasingly gaze into the abyss? I will chalk this up to the same mentality whereby states that are a net drain on the federal government accuse said government of being in league with Satan while overlooking their own inability to survive without said Great Satan.

Stepping Up

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

And so it begins:

Kody Brown is a proud polygamist, and a relatively famous one. Now Mr. Brown, his four wives and 16 children and stepchildren are going to court to keep from being punished for it.

The family is the focus of a reality TV show, “Sister Wives,” that first appeared in 2010. Law enforcement officials in the Browns’ home state, Utah, announced soon after the show began that the family was under investigation for violating the state law prohibiting polygamy.

On Wednesday, the Browns are expected to file a lawsuit to challenge the polygamy law.

The lawsuit is not demanding that states recognize polygamous marriage. Instead, the lawsuit builds on a 2003 United States Supreme Court decision, Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state sodomy laws as unconstitutional intrusions on the “intimate conduct” of consenting adults.

I'm in favor of gay marriage for the same reason I'm in favor of legal polygamy, legalized adult incest, and all the rest - the state really shouldn't be telling anyone else who they can and cannot be in a recognized relationship with, full stop. Unfortunately, I've found that many who agree with gay marriage do not feel the same way about these other types of adult relationships.

Why is it that "equal marriage" only exists for many when it deals with their idea of reality? Should hardcore advocates of gay marriage be lining up behind the Brown family in solidarity and support of their situation? If you believe the US Constitution allows for, if not outright mandates, gay marriage, do you feel the same way here?

The row in Britain...

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Tell me - from where you are sitting , how big a deal is the whole Rupert Murdoch thing?

In the UK, 12 people have been arrested,and the price of Murdoch's company and its subsidiaries has tumbled dramatically. All - repeat - all parties in Westminster seem united to turn on Murdoch and block the media moguls bid to take over BSkyB, and the row that caused the News of the World to shut down is likely to spread to the Sun and even the London Times, which Murdoch also owns.

But , does anyone beyond these shores give a damn? to be honest, I wouldn't blame them if they didn't, but to me, the drama is pointing to several interesting issues at once here. Like...

Do we really want a 'Free market', and is one of them in the public interest?( Read more... )

(no subject)

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14132320

Despite continued international pressure and the acts of radical environmental groups Japan's whaling fleet will be shipping out again.

Frankly I wish Japan would just knock off the whaling. For one, if you've seen Star Trek IV you know why we want to keep whales around. Whales are cool and enjoy swimming with Vulcans. But mostly because the whole whaling thing in Japan is nothing but political theater to garner support for the LDP but looking as if they're "protecting traditional Japanese culture" from asshole Westerners who want to impose their values on Japan. Of course, the fact that only like seven villages in the whole of Japan ever did whaling and it was never more than a small scale thing has no bearing on the matter. "Anti-foreigners" is a song that never fails to pack the house in Japan so why would they stop just because good sense says so?

Not that a lack of sense is exclusive to the Japanese side of this.

Sea Shepherd activists have staged demonstrations outside the IWC meeting here - the organisation is barred from attending - and it is clear that it will send its fleet to the Southern Ocean again if Japan does return.

"Sea Shepherd will also return and will once again intercept and block their operations," the organisation's head Paul Watson wrote on his blog earlier this week.

"If they return, we will launch Operation Divine Wind, and our vessels the Bob Barker, the Steve Irwin, and the Brigitte Bardot will soon return to the remote and stormy seas of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to do what we do best - defend the whales!"


Bwhahaha! That guy couldn't have sounded more absurd if he'd posted "Kneel before Zod, whalers of Japan!" And I can't help but imagine they people on the Bob Barker shouting "The price is wrong, bitch!" as they try and ram a whaling boat or throw acid on its nets.


Honestly, on both sides there's so much absurdity it's amazing anyone is able to take either side seriously.

I predict the GOP will now demand movies depicting the US military as the Hordes of Mordor:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/michelle-obama-pushes-for-better-treatment-of-military-in-hollywood/

At the rate things are going, pretty much anything President or Mrs. Obama support has been opposed by the Republicans, so I predict that with this conservatives will start demanding more movies like Avatar. The other thing that puzzles me is that the US military really is not that badly treated in Hollywood. I certainly don't think the depiction of it in say, Transformers or Independence Day is atypical. Usually the Hollywood version of US tactics has the US military using Napoleonic tactics with 21st Century weaponry but the US military is portrayed as badasses right out of 300. Thoughts on this from the rest of ya'll? And as far as the recent X-Men movie the really unrealistic part was that the KGB was nowhere to be found that and that the USSR would have let mutants roam around openly, a far more grievous plot hole than portraying JFK and Khrushchev as weak-minded fools: 

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