20101115

thisisapost

This blog is not dead, just neglected as per usual.
I'd composed an essay on the Park51 issue, which may not be timely anymore. I'll at least put it here, but parts of it can be worked into another essay I've been composing on First Amendment issues in general, which I plan to send to a few newspapers as well as put online. It works in honor of the upcoming 90th Anniversary of the ACLU's beginning, and in the spirit of "now that the election circus is over, real work can begin." Whatever change ought to be, it won't be achieved through elected officials, but by affecting and effecting the cognitive and moral landscape of society.

I've been maintaining the Utah Freethought Society's activity, however minimal, with the goal of promoting skepticism, science literacy, and open discussion. Our latest topic discussion of Israel/Palestine has attracted more interest than we've had in recent weeks, so I hope a good turnout comes of it. I've also met with the local Coffee Party a bit. They're planning an endrun push for the Disclose Act before the congressional changeover, Then the Utah bunch will try to help the local Fair Boundaries anti-gerrymandering push.

My ancient desktop has been choking on software and had network access problems. Not having the patience to fix it the right way, I'm running off a Crunchbang Statler live CD right now. I think I'll have the monetary flexibility to complete a new desktop soon, then the question of whether to include a Windows partition for the first time in a couple years will be upon me. I may do so just because I've been jonesing to run through the Thief series again, but there's little other reason to run Windows.

Meanwhile, some recent recent thoughts pulled from FB, though I've been trying to reduce my time spent there:

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Re: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2010/11/louisiana_panel_votes_in_favor.html

The matter isn't with evolution being a theory. No duh, so is gravity. The matter is that "intelligent design" isn't. (Nor any other prettified version of creationism)
"Theory" is as good as it gets in real science, and ID plain hasn't done the work to qualify as such. It isn't an explanatory model, just a handwave, and it makes no predictions for what future discoveries might be on the horizon, what future tests might yield new knowledge. It's a worthless security blanket for those unwilling to reconcile their faith with the empirical realities of the world.

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Re: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/20/cindy-mccain-noh8-photo-m_n_430004.html

Cindy McCain actually provoked a lot of ire in conservative circles for this; claims she shouldn't go against her husband and that it was a "hateful" attack on conservative Christians and their values.
Of course in 15 years or so when nearly every U.S. State has gay marriage and adoption, conservative politicians of the future will point to her as proof that equal rights for gays was always a conservative goal.

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1 comment:

Sra said...

I think you can get Thief for the 360. Also, Ian is working on making a thumbdrive to run XP off of, thus negating the need for a partition. I'll let you know if he succeeds.

 
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