This is Jim Graves’ first ad:
We drive by that mill several times a year. At one time it made paper for only two clients: The two main local newspapers, and it made most of their paper. But newspapers are dwindling in production, and so paper mills are fast becoming a thing of the past. This mill, we now know, will not be re-opened. The Sixth District needs to retool its industry and commerce. That will require some leadership, which will not come from Michele Bachmann.
I just want to remind everybody that the fundraiser at which Romney proudly declared he would not represent 47% of Americans, claimed that if he was brown he’d get elected, and promised that if there was a hostage situation in the middle east during the present election season that he’d find a way to take advantage for political gain, was a $50,000 per plate dinner.
The median income in the US is close to that amount.
If you wait 10 tables at an event like that and get a 15% tip, you make more than the median annual income in one night.
There is some brand new research on those New Caledonian Crows that seem to be able to do all sorts of things we thought only smart Humans could do (like making tools, understanding physics, that sort of thing). I’ve written it up here: The Incredulous New Caledonian Crows, on 10,000 Birds, where, as you know, I write a monthly entry on bird evolutionary biology. It turns out they can do something that I’m not so sure all humans are great at. Other than flying.
Please go have a look!
What could be wrong with presenting in a science class “both sides” of controversial topics like evolution or climate change, or having students debate the topics, using argumentation to improve their critical thinking skills? In the case of evolution, presenting supposed alternatives, such as intelligent design or young-earth creationism, is not only considered bad practice, but also unconstitutional in public schools due to the separation of church and state. However, in the case of climate change, the practice of teaching it as controversial and presenting “both sides” as if they are equally valid, is a too common practice among science teachers. This paper examines the reasons why teachers may be encouraged or drawn to “teach the controversy” about climate change, why it is not an effective practice and leaves students more confused, and how the Next Generation Science Standards may help to transform how we teach about climate and global change science and solutions.
What paper you ask? This paper (Page 25 of this PDF download)!
Randy Newman…
Polls in Minnesota show that the anti-Same Sex Marriage constitutional amendment on this year’s ballot could pass, but it is close. If Minnesota defeats this amendment, it could signal a turning point in this battle for basic civil rights. This, right now, today, this minute, would be a very good time for you to give three dollars to Minnesotans United for All Families, which has been leading the fight against the amendment, very effectively, and very efficiently.
Here’s an ad they just put out (This is their first TV ad):
Here is where you click to give them your three dollars. Thank you very much.
I assume that when you clicked on that you actually gave them $15, right?
The tape was running, he was speaking at a fundraiser, didn’t know he was being taped. Holy crap:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3 Continue reading The mic was on, he didn't know: What Mitt Romney Really Thinks
Alber Saber is a pro-democracy blogger in Egypt who also runs a facebook page for atheists. His neighbors found out about this and, of course, mobbed his house. The police arrived on the scene, and of course, they arrested him. He was thrown in jail and, of course, he seems to have been attacked by razor blade wielding prisoners.
Rebecca Watson has started a petition for you to sign to help make the point that the whole world is watching. Please click here and sign the petition.
Alber Saber is an Egyptian pro-democracy blogger who ran a Facebook page for atheists. When a neighbor discovered Saber’s connection to the page, word spread and on 13 September 2012, an angry mob formed at Saber’s house. The police arrived, and instead of dispersing the mob and arresting those threatening to burn the house down, they arrested Saber and accused him of the crime of insulting Islam.
There are already reports that Saber was attacked with a razor blade while in jail, after guards told his fellow Muslim inmates why he was imprisoned. His family fears for his life.
Across Egypt, radical Muslims are reacting with violence to anti-Islamic and pro-secular ideas. Now more than ever, it is crucial for the government of Egypt to make it clear that they support the free, peaceful expression of all citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs (or lack thereof). By continuing to detain, abuse, and potentially prosecute Alber Saber, Egypt sends a message to the rest of the world: debate and discussion are dead, and ignorance and intolerance reign.
President Mohamed Morsi promised to be the president of all Egyptians. We want him to prove it. As concerned citizens who value free and open expression, we demand that Egyptian authorities release Alber Saber at once and provide fully for his safety and the safety of all Egyptians who are currently targeted by religious extremists.
Michael Mann is reporting this on his facebook page:
Breaking: A victory for science! ATI loses ATI/UVa FOIA case. Judge issues final order. Affirms the university’s right to withhold scholarly communications and finds that the documents & personal emails of mine demanded by ATI were indeed protected as the university had contended.
I am gratified for the hard work and vigorous defense provided by the university to protect scholarly communications and raw materials of scholarship. Fortunately Virginia has a strong exemption in the public records act that protects research and scholarly endeavors. The judge ruled that the exemption under Virginia’s public records protecting information in furtherance of research on scientific and scholarly issues applies to faculty communications in furtherance of their work.
This finding is a potentially important precedent, as ATI and other industry-backed front groups continue to press their attacks on climate scientists through the abuse of public records and FOIA laws and the issuing of frivolous and vexatious demands for internal scholarly deliberations and personal correspondences.
More background on the case is available at climscifoi.blogspot:
http://climscifoi.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-filings-in-atiuva-foia-case.html
I’m sure there will be blog posts and articles and air planes with banners and stuff eventually, but I thought you’d want to know this now.
In March, 2012, I attended a conference called Moving Secularism Forward run by the Council for Secular Humanism and the Center for Inquiry. I spoke as part of a panel called Does Secular Humanism Have A Political Agenda? along with Ronald Bailey of Reason.com, Razib Khan of Secular Right, and former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder. This panel was assembled and moderated by Lauren Becker of the Center for Inquiry. Tom Flynn, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism and editor of Free Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism’s bi-monthly journal liked our session (for good reason, it was great) and asked if we could provide a written version of our remarks for publication in the journal, and the issue with those articles in it has just come out: Continue reading Does Secular Humanism Have A Political Agenda?
This is Denise Bader, who is running against a very extreme Tea Party candidate:
Yeah, I’m bringing back the term “Sea Change” which was briefly popular a few years ago, in reference to the perception of party difference, the difference between Democrats and Republicans, in handling foreign policy. Let me say first that it has never been true that the Republicans were better at handling foreign policy than the Democrats. Individual presidents and individual congresses (if that term is appropriate) have varied a lot, and it could be that one party is not better than another. Having said that, I think Democrats have been better over recent decades, more or less. Imagine, if you will, George Bush Jr. in charge instead of JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis. OK, now that you’ve thought about this for a second, throw some cold water on your face and calm down. It didn’t happen, we’re OK. Now, consider the most reviled of the Democratic presidents, Jimmy Carter. Count the number of bombs dropped or missiles fired by the Carter-Mondale administration. Zero. Now think about Clinton’s administration. Most people are unaware these days (or even then) of the slug-fest between Al Qaida and the US, and more specifically, really, Osama bin Laden and Bill Clinton. First, there was George HW Bush who let al Qaida operate in the US to the extent that a few weeks into the Clinton Administration, Osama bombe the world trade center. Meanwhile, George HW Bush had pushed us into a sensless occupation on Somalia. Clinton eventually disentangled us from Somalia, undoing the Republican Mistake, and then, Clinton kept Osama on the run for 8 years, forcing him first to move the the Sudan, then out of the Sudan (remember the baby food factory?) and having his navy address on the ground regular attacks from Yemen. Clinton also worked with the international community to contain Saddam, and Clinton basically solved the problems in Eastern Europe working with NATO. When Clinton left the White House, that allowed Al Qaida to operate freely again in the US, and that is when the second World Trade Center attack, and the Pentagon attack happened. Remember back to Reagan, the greatest of the Republican Presidents (according to some). Remember Operation Fury against Granada? Senseless showmanship designed to cover up a major foreign policy blunder is not good statespersonship. And that blunder, the Lebanon excursion, was one of the greatest shorter-term foreign policy blunders of the 20th century. A few years later, Reagan’s administration made up a fake attack on the US and responded by bombing Libya. Stop for a moment and consider the difference between Reagan’s messing around in Libya and what President Obama managed there. Some day we should have a contest to define the most appropriate metaphor to describer that difference, it could be fun.
Eric Ferguson has written a piece that fills us in on the last few years, comparing President Obama with the Republicans, and focusing on September 11th. But not that September 11th, rather, Romney’s Meltdown. Eric makes the point that it is now more than ever plausible to assume that when it comes to foreign policy, Republicans suck and Democrats do pretty well, and more importantly, that public perception is moving in that direction. He provides evidence from polls and from an analysis of Romney’s Meltdown to show that a Sea Change is likely occurring after which the argument that having an “R” next to your name is not equivalent to having an impressive resume on foreign policy. Indeed, it may well indicate the opposite.
…when Romney denounced Obama for expressing sympathy for the attackers who killed someone at our Benghazi consulate (the numbers and identity were then unknown), which Obama didn’t of course, he showed how grotesquely unfit he is to handle foreign policy or international crises. He reinforced the impression he made when he screwed up so much in Britain that a conservative newspaper called him “Mitt the Twit” on its front page, when he said Israel is doing better economically better than the Palestinian territories because of a superior culture and ignored the occupation, and when he publicly criticized the Obama administration for handing a dissident back to China when they were actually negotiating to bring him to the US.
Read Eric’s piece here, and therein you will find links to interesting polls and a recent timeline of events.
The idea of a “rape switch” came from the work of a student of mine at Harvard, who’s name I would normally provide because this was a research project and one cites one’s sources. However, given the lengths to which sick puppies like The Justicar and others will go to harass people forever if they say things not agreeable to them, I’ll not mention the name.
I only watched a small part of a video made by The Justicar who had apparently discovered the Boston Massacre and could not stop himself from commenting on it, just enough to be certain that he is willfully misrepresenting the idea. I am not sure why he has this fascination with the idea and spends so much energy on this. It looks to me like a strong case of denial of one or more of his own inner switches.
The idea has always been discussed as a model, or as a hypothesis. There is not a hypothesis that men who at home and in non-war time situations do not rape do so in war time situations. This is established fact, not in dispute, and not hypothesis. The rape switch is one version of an approach to explaining this, and it remains a reasonable idea, if somewhat oversimplified.
An aside to address a question Stephanie brought up in her post: As I recall, the idea of writing about war time rape at that time was presented by Sheril Kirshenbaum to a couple of her fellow bloggers then at Scienceblogs.com, including me and Dr. Isis, and I mentioned it to Stephanie.
This post has some 20 or so references that address much of the discussion in the comment section of Stephanie’s post.
The “rape switch” is not a trigger, and it is not “conditioning.” The concept of a “trigger” is already there and in use and was not cooped by the original research. The “rape switch” is different.
One of the points of confusion caused by my initial wording in my post, and also clarified by me then (but that clarification was duly ignored of course) is this: That in the context in which the theoretical “rape switch” is turned on the men for which it is turned on (not “all men” as is often misstated) are rapists. This was meant to indicate that given certain circumstances (and here you can have your triggers if you want) this man would now have the possibility of rape on his list of actual possible behaviors to carry out, as opposed to when the switch is turned off. This is a unique and nuanced use of the word “rapist” which is usually used to refer to someone who has actually raped. The two concepts are clearly different, and as mentioned I did clarify that at the time, but that clarification was willfully ignored by many, as it is being ignored today. The problem is that the word “potential rapist” does not work either because at some level all men and maybe even all women are “potential” anythings. I chose the term “rapist” to indicate men with the “rape switch” turned on (hypothetically) quite intentionally. I was correct in using the word. But I was wrong to assume that nuance would be understood and appreciated.
I will put that another way to be clearer, because the fog of ignorance is thick. The following is a metaphor that will be especially useful for people who regularly smoke or have regularly smoked.
If you smoke tobacco for several years, you are a smoker. One could say that you are a smoker because you smoke. Then, say you quit. One could say you are no longer a smoker. But, smoking is still very much something on the list of things you could do in a very different way than smoking is considered by a non-smoker who has never smoked. A smoker who has quit, for quite some time, is still quite capable of smoking but does not do so because of willpower and other reasons (supportive friends and family, anti smoking rules or agreements in the workplace or at home, etc.) After a person becomes addicted to smoking the “smoking switch” is on, even if the person does not smoke (because they quit).
This is not to say that the “rape switch” has anything to do with addiction (there are those individuals who will willfully take the above paragraph out of context and abuse what I’ve said to suggest I meant that). The point is that a person who is capable of smoking and wants to smoke and could smoke but does not smoke is by one definition of “smoker” not a smoker, and by another definition of “smoker” is.
Let me give you another example. Because I know this is hard for some of you. A person might learn a second language. But then, they never speak it, or hardly ever. For example, I am proficient in KiNguana, a Central and East African language. But I never really use it these days. I am, however, still a KiNguana speaker. In theory, one could even learn a language with intense private study and never utter a word in that language to another human being. Such a person is still a speaker of said language. The rape switch hypothesis says that in certain social settings most men walk around not having rape on their list of things to do. It is unthinkable to them, they are not motivated to consider it at all on a day to day basis, but then, under other social circumstances, the idea of actually carrying out rape is within the range of possibility for them. Wartime would be one of those social setting. Many men in a wartime setting would have the “rape switch” on with simply means that raping someone is a possibility for them. They may also have reasons to not light up, not speak the Esperanto they quietly learned on their own without telling anyone, or to not rape. What they do is not necessarily what they are psychologically capable of doing, in an immediate and easily retrievable way.
The reason that a “rape switch” is an interesting idea is that a wide range and a large number of men in the context of war (but not all war-time situations) become individuals who are quite capable of rape. A very small proportion of women who work for Neiman Marcus or any other corporate entity in New York City or some other place not in a state of war might possibly be raped by their bosses. A much larger proportion of women who work for the military and are deployed in war zones are. A very small number of men walking around on the streets of Saint Paul, Minnesota rape the women they encounter now and then. A very large number of soldiers on patrol in the country side in Viet Nam and World War II and other wars did. These men are all different, from different backgrounds, with differing moral and ethical codes, ideas, and experiences, but a lot of them end up raping women anyway. A switch is an interesting hypothesis exactly because it is a direct connection between simply being a man and being in a war time situation, without going through all the other conditional variables. The rape switch is not a trigger and it is not conditioning. The rape switch hypothesis is interesting, and it may be incorrect.
This is all interesting and worth discussing, but there is a more immediate question that comes to mind. Why do people like The Justicar do what they do? What is wrong with them?