My friend David Hilfiker just let me know that he's publishing his writings on the web. He writes a lot of interesting, insightful material about the state of our country and our planet, and approaches his subjects of justice, religion, health, and poverty from a humble but perceptive place.

He's a Christian (which i am not), and one of a too-rare species of Christian who seems to take the best parts of those teachings and really dedicate himself to them in a way that tries to make the world better. One of the articles on his site is his Letter to Lefties, which addresses the relationship between the secular and religious sections of the progressive movement.

I've been following this story in New Orleans of a doctor and some nurses accussed of "murdering" patients in the chaos following Katrine.

It seems pretty clear to me, at least from the NYTimes article, that she was doing her best to act responsibly and as morally as possible under incredibly extreme circumstances. Yet the attorney general of Louisiana is bent on prosecuting her for murder. Nevermind that all of the patients would have died anyway, just more painfully and slowly, as the US government essentially left them there to die in a sweltering sesspool.

This is happening at the same time as Bush's veto of a bill to fund stem cell research (note: this in the first veto in Bush's entire career, the longest a president has gone without a veto since Thomas Jefferson in 1801). In a speech Bush gave yesterday, surrounded by dozens of white babies, Bush said that the bill, which would "kill" things that aren't actually alive, violates his "principles on the sanctity of human life". Meanwhile, we wage war in Iraq killing thousands of Iraq's, and fully support Isreal's slaughter of Lebanese.

"Culture of life" my ass.

Some of you may remember a couple of years back, when Massachusettes was the first state to attempt to legalize gay marriage, there was a big rally in Cambridge where the first marriage licenses where being given out at midnight. There was also a bunch of insane protestors from Kansas. Well, I guess they're still at it, only this time they are protesting at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. I guess they claim that god hates and is punishing the US (by killing soldiers, among others) because the US condones homosexuality. This time, however, politicians are getting outraged, saying it's disrespectful and trying to ban protests at funerals.

Granted these people are batshit insane, but it seems funny to me that it's not so disrespectful when they're just going around the country publicly preaching death to gays, but when it's at a funeral, of a soldier no less, then it's crossed a line. Maybe we should start by making it a priority to respect the living, then worry about respecting the dead.

ah! look how hated I am! everyone hates atheists!

"Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry." phew.

"seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American
public"

this one kills me: "Many of the study's respondents associated atheism with an
array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant
materialism and cultural elitism."

fuck that. why don't we go down a list of the centuries most heinous criminals
and see whether or not they believe in god, or worse yet, committed their crimes
in the NAME of god. and rampant materialism? oh, yea, christians don't fall
for that. I'm sure everyone who bought a yacht in the last year swore off god
when they layed down that bucket of cash.

this makes me want to stand behind atheism even more. no more of that pansy
agnosticism! don't wimp out! civil rights for atheists!

requiring proof
examining belief

Some interesting recent articles I wanted to share: on the connection between housing design and social problems in France; the obnoxious culture of indulgence in which most American children are raised; work and leisure and economics; what learning looks like in a Christian school curriculum; and how last year's tsunami was experienced by inhabitants of Bandah Aceh, Indonesia.

ok, so i typo a lot. but today, i found a great tool thanks to my clumsy fingers.

i was trying to check the date in a backgrounded rxvt session where i couldn't see the command line.

Here's what i got:

[dkg@squeak ~]$ ddate
Today is Sweetmorn, the 47th day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3171
[dkg@squeak ~]$

To expand on dkg's recent post on Flying Spaghetti Monsterism and Intelligent Design, read these recent NYTimes articles. One is more or less a history of FSM; the other, by Daniel Dennett, addresses the ID debate. I have been touched by His Noodly Appendage, and it is starchy. Ramen.

Finally! An anti-evolutionist writes a reasonable letter to the Kansas City School Board. More details can be found here.

That is all.