Exposure

Political Cartoon is by John Cole in the Scranton Times-Tribune.

Bill Nye "The Science Guy" On Creationism

If you don't know the gentleman in the picture above, then your knowledge of American popular culture is sadly lacking. He's William Sanford Nye, more commonly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, and his PBS show turned thousands of American kids on to science. Nye made science fun. He is truly an American "treasure".

But Mr. Nye doesn't understand how people can turn their backs on science (like evolution), and substitute a silly belief like creationism. Here's some of what he has to say on the subject:

Denial of evolution is unique to the United States. I mean, we're the world's most advanced technological—I mean, you could say Japan—but generally, the United States is where most of the innovations still happens. People still move to the United States. And that's largely because of the intellectual capital we have, the general understanding of science. When you have a portion of the population that doesn't believe in that, it holds everybody back, really. 

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. It's like, it's very much analogous to trying to do geology without believing in tectonic plates. You're just not going to get the right answer. Your whole world is just going to be a mystery instead of an exciting place. 

As my old professor, Carl Sagan, said, "When you're in love you want to tell the world." So, once in a while I get people that really—or that claim—they don't believe in evolution. And my response generally is "Well, why not? Really, why not?" Your world just becomes fantastically complicated when you don't believe in evolution. I mean, here are these ancient dinosaur bones or fossils, here is radioactivity, here are distant stars that are just like our star but they're at a different point in their lifecycle. The idea of deep time, of this billions of years, explains so much of the world around us. If you try to ignore that, your world view just becomes crazy, just untenable, itself inconsistent. 

And I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can—we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems. 

It's just really hard a thing, it's really a hard thing. You know, in another couple of centuries that world view, I'm sure, will be, it just won't exist. There's no evidence for it.

Platform

Political Cartoon is by Mike Keefe at caglecartoons.com.

Women

Compare this obviously rational statement to those made by the Republicans. Then tell me why any woman, or any man who loves the women in his life, can justify voting Republican in the coming election.

What's The "t" For ?

Graphics were found on the blog of The Atheist Pig.

It's Women's Equality Day !

Today is Women's Equality Day in the United States of America. It is on August 26th because that is the day that women finally got the right to vote as the 19th Amendment was certified in 1920. In 1971, a resolution was passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president to celebrate this day as Women's Equality Day.

It is still rather shameful to think that women have been able to vote for less than half of the time the United States has been a country -- and the 100th anniversary of women having the right to vote won't be for another 8 years. But the campaign for full equality for women still has not been won. Too often, they are still treated as second-class citizens, and they have yet to achieve equal pay for equal work.

Sadly, one of our two major political parties seems to be going backward's on women's rights. They want to deny women the right to have control over their own bodies, and think women should be subservient to the wishes of men. That same political party is even refusing to pass a bill against domestic violence. I don't need to name that party, since their leaders (like Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Todd Akin, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and others) have made it clear that their party stands against equal rights for women.

There is no justification for denying equal rights to any of our citizens, and never has been or will be -- especially women, who make up more than half of the population. As we celebrate this day, let us remember there is still a long way to go to achieve full equality for women. We must re-dedicate our efforts to finishing the task.

Hurricane

Political cartoon is by Steve Sack in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Second Poll Shows Akin Sinking Fast

(The caricature above of Missouri senate candidates is by DonkeyHotey.)

Republican teabagger senate candidate Todd Akin recently held a news conference and said he is refusing to drop out of the senate race (even though numerous Republicans around the country have begged him to do so). His reason for staying in the race was that polls show him still being close to winning the race. That may have been the case only a day or so after his ridiculous statement on raped women not being able to get pregnant, but that seems to be changing fast.

Yesterday, I posted about a Rasmussen Poll that showed Akin was now down by 10 points to his Democratic opponent, Claire McCaskill. Now a second poll has been released that confirms the Rasmussen numbers -- this one showing Akin down by 9 points.

Back in July, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch/News 4 Poll showed Akin had a 5 point lead over McCaskill. But that same poll nows shows Akin with a 9 point deficit. Here are the numbers for both:

JULY POLL
Akin...............49%
McCaskill...............44%

CURRENT POLL
McCaskill...............50%
Akin...............41%

That's a 14 point turn-around in the polling in a very short period of time. The biggest drop has been among women. In the July poll women were fairly evenly split between the candidates. Akin now has a 20 point deficit among women. Akin's favorability numbers have also taken a huge hit. Here are those numbers:

JULY
favorable...............24%
unfavorable...............11%
neutral...............40%
don't know him...............23%

CURRENT
favorable...............17%
unfavorable...............56%
neutral...............24%
don't know him...............3%

Back in 2010, the teabaggers hurt Republican chances of winning the senate by nominating bizarre candidates in Nevada and Delaware. It looks like they have repeated that mistake by nominating Akin in Missouri this year.

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I found this little poem on Facebook, and I couldn't pass up tacking it on to the end of this post. The author does a fine job of capturing the style of the great Dr. Seuss.

Convention Check-List

Political Cartoon is by Bruce Plante in Tulsa World.

Romney's Excuses Get More pathetic

For Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie), there is an issue that just won't go away -- and the reason it won't go away is because he refuses to address it in a believable way. It's the issue of him refusing to release a reasonable amount of his past tax returns. His opponent, President Obama, has released the last 12 years of his own tax returns (the same amount that Willard's own father released when he ran for president). But Willard has only released one partial return (the tax return for 2010, which is conveniently missing the required attachment for foreign accounts and investments).

Willard and his wife have tried to float various reasons for his absolute refusal to release the tax returns, from privacy concerns to it's just none of the voters business. But as bad as those excuses were, he has now come up with one that is just downright pathetic. He now claims that releasing the returns would be a violation of his religious freedom. Here is what he told Parade magazine:

“Our church doesn’t publish how much people have given. This is done entirely privately. One of the downsides of releasing one’s financial information is that this is now all public, but we had never intended our contributions to be known. It’s a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church.”

There are a couple of reasons why this excuse is ludicrous. First, it is common knowledge what the mormon church requires of its members -- a 10% tithe. Second, George Romney (his father) and Jon Huntsman (who was one of Willard's primary opponents) didn't seem to think it violated any of their religious rights, since they provided the returns without complaint.

There have been many reasons speculated upon about what Willard is trying to hide by not releasing the returns -- from not paying taxes for several years to trying to hide his real wealth or his tax avoidance schemes with foreign accounts and investments. But this silly statement by Willard makes me think there might be another reason for his refusal -- one I hadn't considered before.

Willard is a high-ranking official in the mormon church, and as such is required to follow church policy. Is it possible that he has been short-changing the church? Has he been paying less (perhaps far less) than the required 10% tithe (while other mormons who make far less pay what is expected of them)? If so, it would put his high position in the church at risk, and embarrass Willard (who publicly claims to be paying the full tithe). I wouldn't doubt that. But whatever the reason, the question remains:

WHAT IS WILLARD MITT ROMNEY TRYING TO HIDE?

Wishful Thinking

Political Cartoon is by Nate Beeler in The Columbus Dispatch.

Tx GOP Wants To Destroy Public Education

It looks like the teabagger Republicans that control the state government in Texas hate public education. They have tried for years to turn the state's public schools into religious institutions that teach the Bible instead of science, and right-wing propaganda instead of history/government. Having largely failed in that effort, they now seem to be waging an all-out war on public education. Even though Texas already had the lowest per pupil funding ratio of any state in the nation, in the last legislative session they cut a whopping $5 billion from education funding (causing the lay-off of thousands of teachers and other school employees).

Now the Republicans are planning a new assault on public schools in the next legislative session. This time they plan to increase the number of charter schools, and fund those schools through the use of vouchers. Yes, you read that right -- school vouchers, a ridiculous idea that has been beaten back repeated in the past, is once again rearing its ugly head in Texas. Currently the state allows 215 charter schools, but Republican senators are holding hearings on the efficacy of allowing many more (and funding them with vouchers).

Republicans will be telling us, as they have done in the past, that this is to improve education in the state. That is a lie. The truth is that charter schools don't provide any better education than public schools do -- and that has become clear in the last few years. What many of them do provide is a religious indoctrination -- and that is the real purpose of the new GOP effort. They have always wanted to be able to divert funds from public education into religious schools, and they believe vouchers will allow them to get around the constitutional ban on government financial support for religious education.

And make no mistake -- every voucher dollar that goes to a charter school is a dollar that will be subtracted from public schools. With many public schools already struggling for adequate funding (thanks to the recession, joblessness, and the massive education cuts by the state legislature), a lot of these schools will have to raise local property taxes to make up for voucher dollars lost -- or cease to exist.

The truth is that public education has always been one of the reasons for the success of the United States. It allows everyone, from the poorest to the richest, to have a good education and a better life -- providing a ladder for personal improvement. And the country as a whole is improved by this, because educated people not only pay more taxes but also provide the innovation and expertise to grow the country and keep it competitive in the world market. And no one can deny that our modern world demands more education, not less.

Our legislators should be making free public education a priority, not trying to destroy it. And Texas' teabagger Republican officials should be ashamed of themselves for their relentless efforts to defund public education. Vouchers are a terrible idea that will do nothing but hurt public education. Hopefully, we can beat back this new attack on public education one more time.

Congress At Play

Political Cartoon is by Bill Day at caglecartoons.com.

Aggressive Atheism ?

Found this at the blog of the inimitable Yellowdog Granny. There is a charge by religionists that there is a new atheism, and that it is aggressive against religion. Frankly, the only difference I see between the "old" atheism and the "new" atheism is that today's atheists are no longer content to keep quiet and hide their beliefs. But their speaking out is much more geared to securing their own right to not believe, than it is to prevent others from believing. That's because they believe in the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion (which must also include the freedom to not believe in any religion).

As far as "aggression" goes, the religionists (especially christians) are far more aggressive than atheists -- because they want the right to force their own beliefs on all of their fellow citizens. Why can't we just respect the right of all people to believe (or not believe) whatever they want as far as religion goes? Isn't that really what our Founding Fathers meant when they proposed the First Amendment to the Constitution?