Need Money for Jesus? Uncle Sam Tithes!

The Seperation of Church and State is again under fire. Literally, this time. When a Chicago church burned down in 2006, Gov. Blagojevich promised the church 1 million of the 10 million in damage assessed to the church to help rebuild it.

They say that the money will only be used to build administrative offices and classrooms and therefore doesn't 'potentially conflict with the separation of church and state.'

This is clearly a violation of church and state.

You can't honestly justify giving money directly to a church for reconstruction and absolutely guarantee that none of the money will be used at all for the church. And even if it isn't used to rebuild the 'worship area' it's being used to rebuild classrooms were children are taught about God and their faith. It's the same thing.

How anyone can even remotely justify that this isn't a violation of church and state utterly boggles my mind. And ironically, no one mentioned if the church was insured in the first place.

I know already the ACLU is planning on contesting any grant to the church - we'll see what happens.

The Faith-Based Bloc

Recently in a friends blog, I have seen an on-going discussion. Where it goes is easily predictable. It's a discussion about gay-rights, but it could be any one of many similar discussions.

The truth of the matter is that you can not argue any point with someone when the argument, to them is a matter of faith. There are a few reasons for this.

1.) There does not need to be a logical basis for their argument beyond my faith tells me so. I'm not saying this is 'wrong', it's simply a mechanic of faith. Not everything need be logical as faith defies logic.

2.) When you argue against something that someone considers a matter of faith, you aren't just discussing the argument at hand anymore. You're calling into question that person as well. Their identity is based on their beliefs, their beliefs shaped by their faith. When you call their viewpoint, which is based on their faith, into question, you are also questioning that person's identity for themselves. This immediately turns the discussion or argument into an emotional attack.

When you see these two points, you understand that once you go down the road of discussing a faith-based stance, you have already lost unless you can defend your viewpoint in terms that the audience (your religious opponent for instance) recognizes as legitimate. More then likely, their own holy text.

This is something a lot of atheists lose sight of. Religions continuously drum their messages out. The followers agree with most of these messages at face value. It is this united stance and the receptive nature of the audiences that makes the religious groups in America an extremely formidable opponent. They stand virtually unanimous on a huge number of issues. Their views are nearly identical on many major issues. A huge percentage of them vote.

This unity, their consistent voting turnout and the ease at which their votes can be decided (is the candidate pro-abortion or against) makes them an on-going political party (one of the most powerful at that) in-and-of themselves.

Theocracy here we come.

The New Epidemic -Drugs in Your Water

We have drugs in our water. Let's put this in context first.

Today the amount of violence we have in the streets has gone down since 1980, proportional to the population. However, the news coverage of it has increased by 6 times.


The past 6 years we have seen all of the following major, epidemic level headlines. Attacks within the United States Imminent (many times), Avian Flu Outbreak, Bubonic Plague Outbreak, Lead Tainted Toys, Mercury Tainted Foods, Poisonous Dog Food, Global Warming, Global Cooling and the list goes on.



Some of these stories had real merits. Some did not. The problem is that if the public is flooded with alarming messages, inundated with fear-mongering news stories, the public becomes 'conditioned.' Now, like the boy who cried wolf, people simply don't care enough to become outraged at 'real problems' because these real problems don't sound any different then the 'End All Life as We Know It' news stories they hear everyday.



This news story on drugs in our water is an excellent example. We have many medications that are present in extremely trace amounts in our water. We're taking about PPB/PPT (parts per billion or parts per trillion). For some reason this is surprising a lot of people - it shouldn't.

It is physically impossible to completely eliminate a chemical from a solution. You can only dillute its concentration - not eliminate it. The recycled water we get from waste treatment has eliminated all but a few parts per billion of the medications found in the waste from the outgoing water. That means they filtered out 99.999999% or more of the chemicals coming in. In many cases (most of the 41 million Americans that were broadcasted) the medications have been filtered out of 99.999999999% of the outgoing water (that's 1 molecule of medication for every 1 trillion molecules of water).

That means that in 1 pound of water there are 27,339,880,000,000,000 (27.3 quadrillion) molecules of medication immersed in 27,339,880,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (27.3 octillion) molecules of water. This may all sound like a lot, but it isn't.

If we compared the known safe levels for poisons in water, like lead, pesticides, even salts, you would find far, far more then you'd ever find of any medication. Magnitudes of a 1,000 times more. THIS IS NORMAL! DO NOT BE ALARMED BY SOMETHING THAT IS NOT AN ISSUE!!!


The fact of the matter is, this 'Drugs in Your Water' story is yet another attempt to alarm the public - to keep them watching the news - for no reason other then to boost ratings and sell advertising.

BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID
- and watch the continuing story at 5 to find out how you will survive!

The New 'Fire Side Chat'

Contrary to popular belief today's video game revolution hasn't been all bad.

A lot of people will talk about violence and link it to violent video games. They'll talk about college dropouts siting their addiction to games as the cause of their downfall. They even talk about the influence of video games eroding at conventional social interaction.

What they don't talk a lot about is how informed today's video gamers (mostly youth and middle aged men of moderate income) are about politics and culture.

I routinely play 2 different MMO's (Massively Multiplayer Online games). They are and EVE Online and World of Warcraft.

Now, looking at these two games two very different groups of people play them.

WoW is largely Americans (on the US servers I play on) while on EVE its largely European.

The main topics of discussion in Barrens, Ironforge and Ogrimmar general chats (popular locations in WoW) are:

1. Chuck Norris
2. Politics
3. Current Events
   

The main topics of discussion in EVE in Jita, Rens and Oursulaert local chat are:

1. EVE mechanics
2. Politics
3. Current Events
   

You can't watch chat in either game for more then a few minutes without seeing a discussion (often heated) on politics. If you want to know what Hillary Clinton said in Ohio at a rally, just ask in Barrens general chat - odds are someone who attended is online and chatting about it. If you want to know what Putin said in his weekly address to Russia, jump over to Jita and ask.

In EVE it's overtly obvious to me how upset many foreigners have become with the US of recent years. Icelanders, English, Italians, Germans, Russians all venting their frustration at the US foreign policies. Meanwhile, in WoW you hear people amazed at what their own country, especially their media, thinks of their intelligence.

You hear the spin lines, you hear the blog quotes, the direct quotes, and the inevitable opinions.

Mostly, especially in recent years though, you can get more information, faster, more accurately on just about any recent event in game. And, better, I can get it from a real person's perspective, not just some suit on the news telling me what his editor decided they want me to hear.

Certainly there is some spam - there's a lot of it really - but both games have very functional 'ignore' commands. Both games have 24-hour political discussion chat channels.

The fact of the matter is that despite the video game crowd has been largely 'written off' as non-significant, this singular group has more knowledge on current events and politics then the average American easily.

So, say what you will about video gamers, but many (not all) you will find to be more informed then you expected - because they are talking about the issues every night.

Decision Day

There hasn't been a set of primaries with the amount of attention and competition like the one we have this year in decades.

Today, John McCain should seal up the Republican nod, but Obama and Clinton are still, likely, going to be neck and neck coming out of this primary.

The frightening reality here is this - McCain will move the Church even further into our government (theocracy on the horizon?). So... atheists are left with the Democratic contenders.

Completely ignoring Obama and Clinton's stances - they really aren't that different anyway. And, moreover, the only things the president truly controls is free trade agreements and the war.

We could talk about their experience but, despite the spin, that's not really much different either.

So the real questions are - Who will get more done? Who is more electable?

Electability:
Obama -

• His limited time in the lime light has the nice benefit of making digging up muck on him a little more difficult.

• Many republicans actually poll towards liking him
  

Clinton -

• Whitewater, suspicious suicides etc - the corruption scandals that marred her husband's time in office will be used extensively against her - especially since she was involved in many of them.

• Many republicans poll towards vehemently hating her.
  

Who can get more done?

The ongoing stop-block that Republicans in congress have against any progressive legislation is working. Which presidential candidate shows merit on being able to break this?

Clinton - "I will fight republicans"

Obama - "I will reach across the isle."

Many people hate comprimising a good thing for something a little watered down - but in this congress, no comprimise typically means no bill.

With that being said, either one of them are an improvement, but that doesn't mean much...

Immigration

Immigration is one of the big issues in this election season.

Argument One:
Loose border security is a path for terrorists to enter our country.

Rebuttal:
Every terrorist attack that has occurred inide of US borders has been carried out by 'legal' immigrants or citizens. The 911 attacks were carried out by foreigners with student visas. Timothy McVeigh, he was a citizen. Those, along with the now numerous school shottings, all by citizens with a single exception - who was also here on a student visa.

So, when we have no record of anyone entering illegally, the notion of claiming that this is some kind of 'priority' in preventing terrorism in the US seems ludicrous. Why don't we work on preventing would-be terrorists from getting visas in the first place?

Argument Two:
Illegal immigrants are just filling jobs Americans don't want to do.

Rebuttal:
In a capitalist society, when no one wants to do a job, you get people by offering a higher wage or better benefits. However, the 'jobs that Americans don't want to do' like drywalling, framing, etc. along with nearly every other construction job have not only not seen a wage increase - but instead have seen as much as a 40% wage decrease over the last 30 years (framers averaged $25 / hour in the 1970's, now they average $15 / hour).

So, if no one wants to do the job... it seems counter intuitive that wages would go down. It seems more likely to me that the influx of illegal workers has helped construction companies force legitimate legal to accept a lower wage for their associated trades.

Argument Four:
Hiring illegal immigrants helps keeps prices low.

Rebuttal:
House prices have gone up and only recently begun to drop. Produce prices have gone up despite a massive influx of foreign produce. These are the two major industries affected by illegal immigrant workforces and the rise in their prices has been disproportional to inflation. So despite saving massive amounts of money on labor, construction costs are still climbing. It seems as though the construction companies are just pocketing more money but cutting out American workers.

Argument Five:
Illegal immigrants help fill vacancies in employment that citizens aren't available to fill.

Rebuttal:
Actually plenty of citizens are available to fill these vacancies, however, many people would rather just collect welfare then work for a job that doesn't even pay enough to get them half-way to the poverty line. Welfare pays more for less.

Again, if illegal immigrants weren't saturating the work place, then the jobs would pay more and the incentive to work these jobs would exist.

Finally:
A fence, if deployed correctly, may be appropriate for some areas. But a fine for employing illegal immigrants, with no clause or allowance for employer ignorance, would help solve the issue outright. Furthermore, if the fine worked similar to the EPA Refrigerant Release fine, where the person who turned in an employer would get a smaller share of the fine levied, we could expeditiously eliminate illegal immigrant employment in the United States.

Some goods may increase in cost, but long term costs to the taxpayers and communities would drop. It would also force agriculture and construction companies to finally raise their employees wages.

And, at the end of the day, we have illegal immigrants because they can work here. If we stem their source of employment, we can stop the immigration.

Our current policy would be like leaving sugar on your floor and building an extra wall to keep ants out. Clean up the sugar and the ants won't try to enter in the first place.

Voting against our own self-interests

This week Bush promised to veto legislation that has passed in the house that would remove 1.8 billion dollars a year in tax subsidies to American Oil companies.

John McCain and the majority of Republicans in Washington stand behind this.

They're calling it 'discriminatory' to target a single industry with the removal of tax assistance. Furthermore, they claim it will 'discourage' American oil companies from investing inside the US - which would send more jobs overseas and further increase our reliance on foreign oil.

The House bill redirects these subsidies into alternative energy initiatives.

Now, let's examine the logic here:
The US subsidizes all American oil companies, we subsidize both their costs within the US and outside the US. We subsidize their expenditures for exploration, their employees wages (both American and foreign wages), their land costs / purchases. We even waive many of the clean air requirements for their refineries while subsidizing the cost of upgrading their foreign refineries to meet other countries emission requirements.

Billions and billions of dollars in subsidies all geared toward lowering the price of gas at the pump. And despite all of this, oil is over $100 a barrel and prices at the pump are at record highs. To completely moot any argument they have made against this, for several years running the oil companies have been setting quarterly record profits.

It absolutely kills me that Americans, when exposed to this blatant gouging of their own money, their own way of life, will still vote for the men who adamantly stand behind their decision to throw their own constituents under the bus.

"As long as he thanks God for driving me into poverty, and thanks Jesus for taking my job away from me, and does a few Hail Marys for killing my son in Iraq, he's ok with me." - That is what I see millions of Americans saying.

I see it and it horrifies me.