New York drops a Green Ball Tonight!

The 1,415-pound ball will be covered in more than 9,500 energy-efficient light-emitting diodes that will illuminate the ball’s over 600 crystals and set the sky a blazin’.

Rowling dabbles in the possibility of an 8th...

JK Rowling drops hints of possible eighth Harry Potter book

sometimes I think the world is getting better...then I remember that Huckabee is a candidate with people intending to vote for him

On NBC’s Meet The Press this morning, host Tim Russert asked former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee if he believed “people are born gay or choose to be gay?” “I don’t know whether people are born that way,” responded Huckabee, “but one thing I know, that the behavior one practices is a choice.”

First of all, I don't believe in a gay gene. But that is irrelevant to the self-righteous ignorance of this bible-beating fuck head.

I am starting to sound like the Rude Pundit. Let's talk facts--no venting.

Here's a fact:

In 1997, Huckabee requested an amendment to a state Senate bill stating “that it is Arkansas public policy to prohibit sodomy to protect the traditional family structure.” [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 1/23/1997]

Protect the traditional family? Here's another fact: the traditional family is a FAILING institution. No doubt because social and unfortunately political institutions enforce and regulate rigid, arbitrary and oppressive criteria of sexuality, family, and children through cultural coercion and other cow-herding tactics.

ew, cow milk

State is seeking cause of bad milk

Suicide Food

I added this blog to my list of links the other week, but I feel that I owe it an actual post. Suicide Food displays ads that portray animals as happy or involved in their own death and consumption. What is more, the animals in these ads happily participate and/or welcome the process. I think this speaks to one of two things I blogged that society expects of a person: mindlessly consume animals (the second, being heterosexual).

More importantly, society justifies its large-scale consumption of animals to such an extent that the process is taken for granted. This becomes so standard that we imagine animals as happily participating. We are so detached from animal exploitation, death, and cruelty, that consumers will smile and respond positively to ads portraying animals as participating in their own unhappy ending.

The collection on Suicide Food is a cultural testament to the fact that our society does not value animals, or appreciate what we take from animals. If we were truly thankful, we would not exploit/abuse animals before we slowly and painfully slaughter them. We would not pump them so full of hormones that their limbs would deform and/or break. We would not pack them so tightly into trucks that some animals would suffocate under the pressure. We would not hurt animals pre-slaughter for amusement. We would not preach on the food pyramid and in dietary guidelines that a person has to consume animals to be healthy. We would ESPECIALLY not mock the death of animals by pretending that it is something cute for an ad.

We would not treat animals, their ecosystems, and the environment as dispensable--because none of them are.

Nice move, Prince Charles

Prince Charles pledged $541.2 million dollars to Norway's efforts of halting deforestation around the world. Norway's Prime Minister, Jens Sloltenberg accepted the offer, and extended invitations to all other countries to help fight the good fight.

Deforestation in developing countries is estimated to contribute a fifth of total global greenhouse gas emissions through the release of carbon dioxide, and Norway believes the fastest and most cost effective way to help end global warming is to halt this damaging process. Furthermore, in April, Stoltenberg set a goal to make Norway totally carbon neutral by 2050 by offsetting Norwegian greenhouse gas emissions by investing in environmental projects throughout the developing world.

women, public space, and the gym

I enjoyed this post over at Bitch Ph.D. on women in public spaces, specifically focusing on the gym. I certainly notice the lack of women in the weight-lifting section, and I can personally testify to feeling anxious when in that area myself. That is to say, feeling out of place, silly, and/or unwelcome.

Now I am more interested in being able to lift my own body weight, so I no longer wander to the lifting corner--but I still experience the gym in highly gendered ways. I actually have a funny anecdote on the matter.

"Monika," I once asked. "Where do you feel like a piece of meat the most? I feel like the biggest piece of meat at the gym."

"I feel like the biggest piece of meat at temple," she responded.

You know, I laughed--but there really is nothing funny about the fact that women face discomfort while working out or worshiping.

Romney & Huckabee....gag me

My new favorite blog, Atheist Revolution, had an interesting post regarding the fundamentalism of Romney versus Huckabee--ultimately finding Huckabee's more atrocious, but from a different approach.

Romney made a horrifying religious speech earlier this month, of which this paragraph I found most alarming:

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."

Also in the world of incompetent presidential candidates earlier in December, Huckabee refused to retract his 1992 statement that AIDs patients should be ISOLATED. Let's re-examine some of the highlights from his original rant:

"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague."

"It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents."

And by the way:

"I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk."

But instead of focusing on the egregious ignorance of a presidential hopeful (because in the early 90's it was medically understood that AIDs is not transmitted through casual contact) and his related homophobic slurs...what deserves equal attention is Huckabee's use of the term plague and its biblical connotations.

As summed by Atheist Revolution, "I do not see this as accidental but rather as evidence of the degree to which his thinking is dominated by a biblical world view."

Well-said.

the power of facebook can affect laws?

I think that the article Power of Facebook affects laws by Internet law professor Michael Geist is over-ambitious in its claim.

Sure, he explains one incident where 25,000 people organized on Facebook to interfere with the implementation of unfair copyright reform in Canada--but that is one incident. Plus, I am not sure if that same model can translate into American adolescent political culture.

Although the professor has a point; Facebook is an "incredibly effective and efficient took that can be used to educate and galvanize grassroots advocacy, placing unprecedented power into the hands of individuals."

But just because it CAN be all that and a bag of potato chips, doesn't mean that it IS. In fact, despite the potential and undoubted success for a minority of cases, I doubt that Facebook will ever amount to anything so mind-blowing, because groups and causes are just like anything else in American culture--crap that sits on the shelf of complacent people.

Except now the shelf is a virtual profile page. Plus, the people who are politically active on Facebook to any impressive degree likely were already so without Facebook.

Until there is a massive overhaul in our political culture, Facebook will never affect change on a profound level.

Bush to Veto Pentagon Funds Over Iraq Provision

I truncated the original article

WASHINGTON — President Bush will veto a huge Defense Department bill because of concerns by the Iraqi government that Iraqi assets in American banks could be vulnerable to claims from victims of Saddam Hussein the White House said Friday in Texas.

Mr. Stanzel said the president objects to a section in the National Defense Authorization Act that would permit plaintiffs’ lawyers to freeze Iraqi funds and expose Iraq to “massive liability in lawsuits concerning the misdeeds of the Saddam Hussein regime.” At least one pending lawsuit reportedly seeks $1 billion or more.

The White House’s initial explanation on Friday was that the language in the bill would unfairly expose the democratically elected government of the new Iraq, “a friend and ally of the United States,” to lawsuits arising from “the crimes and atrocities” committed by Saddam Hussein, the despot who was overthrown in the American-led military campaign, convicted of crimes against his countrymen and hanged in late 2006.

“Despite the administration’s earlier support for the Department of Defense authorization bill, it appears that President Bush plans to veto this legislation, which is crucial to our armed forces and their families,” the Democratic leaders said in a joint statement.

Senator Carl Levin the Michigan Democrat who heads the Armed Services Committee, said it was “unfortunate that the administration failed to identify the concerns upon which this veto is based until after the bill had passed both houses on Congress and was sent to the president for signature.” The senator said he was “deeply disappointed” at Friday’s developments.

The bill is important to members of the military and their families, since it provides for a 3.5 percent pay raise for the troops and contains measures intended to improve the much-criticized health-care system for veterans. (Money for the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is provided for in separate legislation.)

bad news from Planned Parenthood

Today's Planned Parenthood newsletter reports some very repulsive news from Colorado, where a new clinic is being built.

Protesters are are now marching and carrying signs outside the homes of the construction and security workers who are building the new clinic — now, as in during the holidays.

Talk about an invasion of privacy.

Anyway, Planned Parenthood--like so many other incredible organizations--needs funds to support the cause. You can donate here. A donor is matching all contributions made before December 31st.

Albuquerque Has Renewal of Attacks on Abortion

A rash of attacks on abortion and family planning clinics has struck Albuquerque this month, the first such violence there in nearly a decade.