25th May 2008

Breaking Heartland’s Heart

The Heartland Institute is a not uncommon source for climate ’skepticism’, which term, by the way, I put is scare quotes as climate ’skepticism’ makes a mockery of skepticism and I find that offensive. Climate ’skepticism’ is an insult to skeptics everywhere. You see, the skeptic questions, the climate ’skeptic’ fabricates and misrepresents in an effort to mislead for the purpose of upholding preconceived notions– or maybe just for cash. Let me restart.

The Heartland Institute is a not uncommon source for climate ’skepticism’, and what a source it is. Let’s take a look.

posted in Global Warming, Politics by themaiden| 9 Comments

24th May 2008

Let’s at Least Be Honest About ID

I found a decently done review of Ben Stein’s idiocy, ‘Expelled’, but the reviewer has swallowed a little bit of the ID Kool-Aid and it happens to be a bit of Kool-Aid that annoys me greatly.

Having now watched the film — which is terrible, filled with specious reasoning, false dichotomies, and self-contradiction — I find that I did learn a thing or two. I had assumed that Creationism and Intelligent Design were the same thing. They are not. Creationism is the belief that God created the Earth more or less the way it’s described in Genesis. Intelligent Design merely holds that certain things about life on this planet are best explained by something supernatural. Where there are gaps in scientific knowledge, ID fills ‘em in.

posted in Politics by themaiden| 7 Comments

22nd May 2008

YouTube for Democracy

Its tempting to post my own ‘free speech‘ rant but…

Senator Lieberman stated his belief, in a letter sent today, that all videos mentioning or featuring these groups should be removed from YouTube — even legal nonviolent or non-hate speech videos,” YouTube’s blog post states. “While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view. We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds.”

posted in Politics by themaiden| 1 Comment

21st May 2008

Weird s*^% like integrity and honor and oaths and such

A quick redirect to an interesting bit of news. Ray McGovern, “veteran Army intelligence officer and a former CIA analyst for 27 years’ as per his signature line, has written a letter to Gen. Fallon about attacking Iran. In this letter he talk about oaths taken to uphold the constitution and about the general stupidity of attacking Iran. The letter has already been published online in a number of places. Check Google or read it where I found it–peterthottam.com

Popularity: 1%

posted in Iran, Politics, War by themaiden| 3 Comments

11th May 2008

Carnival of the Libertarians: Mother’s Day Edition

Welcome to the May 11, 2008 edition of carnival of the libertarians.

I was invited a month or more ago to host this carnival. I’m happy to do so. I’ve got libertarian leaning myself, as well as some not so libertarian ones as those who’ve crawled the blog might be tempted to point out, but my political thought is rooted in the general principles of maximum personal liberty and minimum functional government– I stress the ‘functional’ part. As with every carnival I’ve posted, don’t take inclusion in the carnival to mean endorsement by the blog.

posted in Carnivals, Politics by themaiden| 5 Comments