House for Sale

*SOLD! 9/22/07*

Again, we're moving...If anyone is looking for a small house in Haile Plantation, spread the word -- it's a 2 BR / 2 BA ~1000 sq. ft., and our agent said asking $157,500 is underpricing: understandable, given that we need to move soon and can't afford to eat the mortgage for long. We're also willing to work with a buyer on closing costs. It's perfect for new married couples or small families. The neighborhood is unanimously-agreed to be the best in the Gainesville area.

The next closest house in price to ours is a 2 BR / 1 BA ~1000 sq. ft., that is selling for $160 two streets down, then a 2 BR / 2 BA ~1000 sq. ft. for $165 in that same area. Basically they're asking for about $160 dollars / sq. ft., and we're asking less, and giving more. We're getting ready to put a brand new roof on it and replace all the carpets with Berber. We have Purgeot American Cottage red oak flooring (new) throughout the living & dining area.

The address is 5441 SW 88th Court, and here is a link to the location on Google Maps:
http://tinyurl.com/2ls9ug

It will be listed in the MLS service starting Monday with Coldwell Banker. If you're interested, call for a walk-through this week, and you can reach our agent for more details:

Susan Houder
susanh@mmparrish.com
Mobile: 352-665-4064
Office: 352-264-3130
MM Parrish

Moving to Columbia, SC

I got the job.

We'll be moving the first week of August, it looks like, and I'll be on the faculty of the Upper School at Hammond, teaching Chemistry (what else?). It's a pretty impressive list -- they even have an M.D. teaching Biology. More to come...

Bush and the American Military

I don't want to rehash material that other liberal bloggers have well-documented concerning Bush's doublespeak on being "pro-military" and concomitantly reducing a Congressional pay raise for the military, or talk about the VA and post-war programs for vets, or extending tours of duty...&c.

Instead, a question concerning how Bush's policies have affected the might of the military in terms of recruitment and allied support:

Its volunteer army is indeed stretched: it could not fight another small war of choice. But it can still muster 1.5m people under arms and a defence budget almost as big as the whole of the rest of the world's. And it could call on so much more: in relation to the country's size, its defence budget and army are quite small by historical standards. Better diplomacy would enhance its power.

One irony of the “war on terror” is that Mr Bush's hyperventilation worked against him in terms of getting boots on the ground: neither his own countrymen nor his allies were sure enough that they were really under threat. (And why should they be? An American-led West spent four decades tussling with a nuclear-armed empire that stretched from Berlin to Vladivostok; al-Qaeda is still small beer.)

Why are fewer men and women enlisting in today's military? Is it simply fear of dying in a time of war? In part...but I don't think that's the whole story.

The current administration abandoned Roosevelt's wise maxim, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," much to our country's detriment. People must remind themselves of a time when all-out nuclear holocaust was a very serious possibility, just around the corner, and not be deluded by buying into the bullshit "existential conflict of our generation" mentality. And I think that more people are waking up to that fact. We are not living in a time of "greatest threat", our military is needed much less today than at many times in our history.

The "war on terror" cannot be fought with guns. Terrorism is a tactic. It cannot be "defeated". Ideology cannot be shot with even the beautiful Heckler & Koch 416 (a superior arm over the standard Army-issued M4). And that's why fewer people want to buy into that rhetoric.

If we have no clear enemy and no clear strategy, if our young men and women are unsure of the motives of this war, and suspect an executive's stubborness is the sole reason for our continued conflict...they will not be impelled to risk their lives for such a failed policy. And thus it should come as no surprise when recruitment in 2005 was down 25%, or when 38% fewer black men enlist, or the growing ranks of thugs and criminals -- even gangs -- in our honorable services. It isn't that our country is being sapped of courage to fight. We're being drained of faith in our leaders to morally direct fighting in general, and to manage wars they've begun. We see through the veil, and the grand Wizard of Oz booming out stark warnings and spreading terror turns out to be just another power-hungry politician.


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Technorati tags: Politics

Saving the Earth with a smile: reducing your junk mail

You can do two things, right now, that will take you 3 minutes max, save a number of trees [over the course of years] PLUS save you time and effort for years to come*:

1. Opt out of sharing your credit information via credit agencies
2. Contact centralized direct mail service (DMA) to request removal of your info (costs $1)
   

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1) This will stop a huge amount of the junk mail that you get, especially the damned credit card, mortgage and insurance offers.

Call 1-888-5 OPT OUT (1-888-567-8688) 24/7, all you need is your name, current address, SSN & DOB.

2) Use the DMA Customer Assistance website to opt-out of general mailing lists using these directions. You can do it in 20 seconds with this online form. It only costs you $1, and it is well worth the price in terms of trees saved and frustration avoided.

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This saves trees and it saves your the aggravation of sorting out a pound of junk mail every day. Recycling the junk mail is not nearly as efficient or environmentally friendly as stopping it.

What a simple way to use 3 mins of your time for a good cause and out of self-interest. Do it.

Now.

For more suggestions on junk mail reduction, see here and here.

*(Some of the mail will stop within a week or two, but there is a lag time for you to see the total cumulative effect, since so many companies have been given your info. However, they all refresh their databases at least once every six months to troll for credit score changes, and so the effect will show up soon enough.)

So Depressing

So sad to read about Hein v. FFRF.

SCOTUS is just what the theocrats had wet dreams it would be -- completely unmoved by the idea that the Executive Branch using tax money to further religion is unconstitutional.

Taxpayers, he said, "set out a parade of horribles that they claim could occur" by allowing such faith-based funding to continue, suggesting the federal government could build a national house of worship, or buy Jewish Stars of David and distribute them to public employees.

"Of course none of these things has happened," said Alito, and "in the unlikely event that any of these executive actions did take place, Congress could quickly step in."

*sigh*

Things very similar to this have happened -- the government funds appropriated for "abstinence-based sex ed" have been used to promote religious ideology over scientific fact at the expense of the health of millions of people. The exponential rise of AIDS in Africa can rightly be framed as a serious implication of such policies, in concert with Vatican dogma against condom usage.

Alito is the author of the unitary executive legal theory which all but confers dictatorial powers to the President, which he has cited numerous times in his usage of "signing statements" to bypass him having to actually obey the law. This should come with little surprise. Everyone knew that Kennedy was the swing vote.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Church-state, Politics

Travel to Columbia, SC

I'll be leaving in a few minutes for Columbia, SC, for a job interview at the Hammond School. I'll be returning Tuesday afternoon.

Wish me luck.

My submission to Seed Magazine's writing contest

I just submitted my entry to the Seed writing contest.

Read it here.

(or, R-click and "Save As" [Word 97-03 document (.doc, 1.3MB)])

"Analyzing Scientific Literacy in the 21st Century: Approaches and Considerations"

You'll need the password to open it: 0opeyx88888

Again: You have to open it read-only. I will put up a .PDF if and when it gets published.

Contest details:

Seed is pleased to announce the Second Annual Seed Science Writing Contest, presented by Honeywell.

Throughout the 20th century, science changed our perspective on the world. It altered our sense of individual identity, compelled us to environmental consciousness, and shaped our view of the cosmos. Its legacy is apparent in what we learned: the three Rs, our As, Ts, Cs, and Gs, the consequences of splitting the atom, that the solar system is 4.6 billion years old...

Today, the mantra of competitiveness has gained new momentum in the US, reinvigorating a discussion about education and the public's understanding of science. Science is high on the agenda of the European Union. And China and Africa have identified science literacy as a cornerstone of their respective development strategies. This begs the question:

What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st century?

How do we measure the scientific literacy of a society? How do we boost it? What is the value of this literacy? Who is responsible for fostering it?

Essay submissions will be judged by a panel of Seed editors and special guests. Winning entries will be published in Seed magazine.

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Technorati tags: Philosophy

Dick "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is not torture" Cheney

From the WaPo blogs:

From that moment, well before previous accounts have suggested, Cheney turned his attention to the practical business of crushing a captive's will to resist. The vice president's office played a central role in shattering limits on coercion in U.S. custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the Bush administration has since portrayed as the initiatives, months later, of lower-ranking officials.

Cheney and his allies, according to more than two dozen current and former officials, pioneered a novel distinction between forbidden "torture" and permitted use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" methods of questioning. They did not originate every idea to rewrite or reinterpret the law, but fresh accounts from participants show that they translated muscular theories, from Yoo and others, into the operational language of government.

This is just really hard for me to fathom. How do they even pretend there is a non-semantical difference? They don't, really. They just want to avoid the word "torture" because of its connotations, not because it is, like, ya know, EVIL or anything.

The vice president's counsel proposed that President Bush issue a carefully ambiguous directive. Detainees would be treated "humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of" the Geneva Conventions. When Bush issued his public decision two weeks later, on Feb. 7, 2002, he adopted Addington's formula -- with all its room for maneuver -- verbatim.

This, folks, is the very heart of "legal wiggle room". No absolutes here. Bushco is praised for their "moral absolutism" against the godless relativists on things like stem cell research, gay marriage, etc. They keep it simple, stupid, by saying, "Yes," and "No," but not when it comes to torture.

Then, it's to a certain extent, and consistent with principles rather than particulars.

How people can claim that they are religious, and love God and humanity, then claim Bush is too, and that torture is okey-dokey, is beyond my comprehension.

This previously unreported meeting sheds light on the origins of one of the Bush administration's most controversial claims. The Justice Department delivered a classified opinion on Aug. 1, 2002, stating that the U.S. law against torture "prohibits only the worst forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" and therefore permits many others. [Read the opinion] Distributed under the signature of Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, the opinion also narrowed the definition of "torture" to mean only suffering "equivalent in intensity" to the pain of "organ failure ..... or even death."

Well isn't that nice. 1) Gonzo's name isn't on there. 2) Torture is now redefined, just as "truth" has been for six years.

When news accounts unearthed that opinion nearly two years later, the White House repudiated its contents. Some officials described it as hypothetical, without disclosing that the opinion was written in response to specific questions from the CIA. Administration officials attributed authorship to Yoo, a Berkeley law professor who had come to serve in the Office of Legal Counsel.

Turns out not to be hypothetical at all.

The vice president's lawyer advocated what was considered the memo's most radical claim: that the president may authorize any interrogation method, even if it crosses the line of torture. U.S. and treaty laws forbidding any person to "commit torture," that passage stated, "do not apply" to the commander in chief, because Congress "may no more regulate the President's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield."

The law doesn't apply to them. Has anyone NOT fuc#in' gotten this, yet? These people truly think they are above the law in every important sense.

That same day, Aug. 1, 2002, Yoo signed off on a second secret opinion, the contents of which have never been made public. According to a source with direct knowledge, that opinion approved as lawful a long list of specific interrogation techniques proposed by the CIA -- including waterboarding, a form of near-drowning that the U.S. government classified as a war crime in 1947. The opinion drew the line against one request: threatening to bury a prisoner alive.

What, Dick, you lost your balls when it comes to burying them alive? Why commit one war crime but not another? The law doesn't apply to executives like you and King W.

Impeach.
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Technorati tags: Politics

Deep Thought

From Jason Rosenhouse:

As regular readers of this blog are aware, I spend a considerable amount of time attending creationist conferences and presentations. And since I am cursed with both the ability and the willingness to look at things from the perspective of people with opinions different from my own, all of this exposure occasionally leads to bouts of Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe, I start wondering, it's unfair for me to go into their hidey holes for the sole purpose of later writing snide accounts of my experiences. Maybe I should just leave them alone. If they want to live according to their own idiosyncratic religion, who am I to pass judgment on them?

Then I see things like Men in White, and like a bucket of cold water I am reminded of a fundamental truth of creationism. They are not wasting even one single second worrying about presenting their opponents fairly, or of understanding the views they criticize with such venom. There is no stereotype so crass, no argument so foolish, and no misrepresentation so egregious that they won't use it if they think it will give them a rhetorical edge. There isn't a college professor, scientist or teacher on the face of the Earth who behaves anything like the caricatures on the screen, but one suspects that fact means nothing to them. Their shameful behavior does not justify similar behavior on the part of their critics, of course. But it is useful to be reminded that while I worry about fairness and open-mindedness, there is absolutely none of that sentiment coming the other way.

I feel his pain.
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Technorati tags: Religion, Atheism, Creationism

"God Hates the World"

This brought tears to my eyes. But for all the wrong reasons...especially the little child at the end singing about how it's too late to change his mind.

"...PROUD SINNERS!"
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Atheism