If You're College Bound in Florida

Be ready for sticker shock. Via Tristero at Hullabaloo, comes this report on HuffPo:

Highly distinguished universities, such as the University of Florida and Florida State University, could charge more than others. Tuition would be lower for students pursuing degrees most needed for Florida's job market, including ones in science, technology, engineering and math, collectively known as the STEM fields.

The committee is recommending no tuition increases for them in the next three years.

But to pay for that, students in fields such as psychology, political science, anthropology, and performing arts could pay more because they have fewer job prospects in the state.

"The purpose would not be to exterminate programs or keep students from pursuing them. There will always be a need for them," said Dale Brill, who chairs the task force. "But you better really want to do it, because you may have to pay more."

So Florida is recommending that students who go into the liberal arts and fine arts, who, after all, can't really expect six- or seven-figure incomes after graduation, subsidize the education of doctors, engineers, and other professionals, who can. This is the Christian fundamentalist/corporatist idea of higher education: trade schools to train people to make a lot of money at jobs that are going to be shipped off to China and Brazil anyway.

Mind you, these are the very people who have been trying to get rid of the National Endowment for the Arts since it was created.

And it's worth noting that psychology and anthropology (among the rest of the social sciences, I presume) are included in the disfavored category. (Because that's exactly what it is -- the areas in demand have now received official preference.)

Tristero's summation hits it pretty accurately, I think:

This is the logic of Puritans. It's all of a piece with the attraction the MSM and many "serious" economists have for austerity programs to the bizarre movement that would force a woman to give birth to her rapist's child,

It is a worldview that privileges a dreary bleakness over joy.

It's even worse than that. I'm convinced that the strain of anti-intellectualism in our country has deep roots in a truly Puritan world-view: the arts give us pleasure, and so they're sinful and to be avoided at all costs. And what's even worse, they teach people to think for themselves.

Can't have that, now, can we?

The Life of a Galaxy

Courtesy of NASA's supercomputers. Each second of the video is 98,540,145 years. Approximately.

Via Buzzfeed.

Update: If it looks like the galaxy in the center of the video is "eating" other star clusters and small galaxies, that's because it is. Check out this article at Science Daily:

"The Milky Way is constantly gobbling up small galaxies and star clusters," said Ana Bonaca, a Yale graduate student and lead author of a study forthcoming in Astrophysical Journal Letters. "The more powerful gravity of our Milky Way pulls these objects apart and their stars then become part of the Milky Way itself."

So now you know.

"Gay Gestapo"

In case you missed Carol Costello's run-in with Bryan Fischer of the hate group American Family Association, here's the story, and a little follow-up.

It's still something of a surprise to see a news anchor or talk show host challenge assholes like Fischer, much less call them liars to their faces. Costello gets an award for this -- I think we'll start the Carol Costello Award, for those who call out bullies like Brian Fischer. And Fischer gets the Tony Perkins Award, for shameless lying.

Picture du Jour

Kazaky, Again

Rmember Kazaky? I've posted on them before, but thanks to the new, improved Blogger, I can't do a search of the site to pull up a link.

At any rate, here's the newest:

Here's their official YouTube channel. Check it out -- great stuff.

What Digby Said

With her usual perspicacity, on the Benghazi flap. Quoting Josh Marshall:

One reason the Benghazi controversy has always seemed so bogus to me is that I’ve never bought the core premise, which is that the administration had any clear political reason or advantage to gain by claiming the attack was tied to the video as opposed to a pre-planned assault. (Here’s our look at how Benghazi evolved into a GOP talking point.) In addition to a great number of hacks peddling this idea, some people I respect a great deal seem to credit the idea. But again, it doesn’t add up to me.

She goes on to elaborate:

I was watching the McLaughlin Report last night while making dinner and Pat Buchanan responded to Eleanor Clift's similar question by saying they all lied to protect Obama's reputation as a terrorist killer. That's the best explanation I've heard for why the right is pimping this so-called scandal, but it's mighty thin in my opinion. Most of the country doesn't even know where Benghazi is and don't consider a "terrorist attack" there to be particularly relevant to their lives. To think they would vote for Romney on this basis strikes me as a reach.

I had some thoughts on this bit, though. For starters, a third of American college students can't find their home towns on a map. (That's an old figure -- it may have gone up since I ran across it a couple of years ago.) Second, and most important, I think she has a mis-read on the issue of terrorists attacks and their relevance in most people's minds.

"Terrorist attack," or anything "terrorist," has moved into that category of buzz words that go straight to the lizard brain -- much like "save the children!" and anything Nazi. If you call something a "terrorist attack," I seriously think that most people in this country have gotten to the point where they go straight into survivalist mode without bothering to think about it. They don't have to know where Benghazi is -- they don't know for sure where they are in relation to anyplace else in the world anyway.

And the right, much to our collective detriment, have got a lock on that aspect of human psychology -- they've been using those kinds of tactics very successfully since Willie Horton, or even before -- Anita Bryant comes to mind.

So I suspect that most people, at least those in the right wing target audience, do consider "terrorist attacks" to be relevant to their lives -- they're being threatened, even more so since Americans were killed. After all, we've had eleven years of repeated warnings of "terrorists," to the extent that we put up with things like the abomination that is the TSA, trial by president, abrogation of habeas corpus, and the whole panoply of our government's reaction to perceived threats, even though the perception outweighs the reality by orders of magnitude.

After all, any country that can consider a four-year-old in leg braces a threat is certainly going to have the desired response (from the Fox News point of view) to an attack on Americans someplace most of them have never heard of.

Read both posts, Digby's and Josh Marshall's -- they're worth the time.

Just for Fun

About Those Innovative "Job Creators"

One thing that strikes me about the energy industry (which is a misnomer, but be patient) is its -- well, let's call it "fossilized thinking" about energy sources. They're locked into coal and oil, big time.

This story teased it up to the front of my brain this morning:

The wind energy industry faces a lame duck fight in the House of Representatives over extending the expiring production tax credit. The tax credit has broad bipartisan support, and considering that 81 percent of U.S. wind projects are installed in Republican districts, GOP lawmakers have a good reason to support it.

But with Koch Industries and fossil fuel groups mobilizing to defeat the credit, its future after 2012 is uncertain. The American Energy Alliance, which has Koch ties, told Politico Pro this week that it aims to make the credit a toxic issue for House Republicans: (Article requires subscription access):

“Our goal is to make the PTC so toxic that it makes it impossible for John Boehner to sit at a table with Harry Reid and say, ‘Yeah, I can bend on this one,’” said Benjamin Cole, spokesman for the American Energy Alliance.

Think about that for a minute: they call themselves "energy" companies, and yet are fighting tooth and nail against sustainable energy sources when they should be the ones at the front of the line for developing things like wind and solar power. I'm reminded of a story from a couple of years ago about a solar battery developed by Sony under a DoD contract. It was successful -- they developed a battery that could be installed in an automobile and recharged by solar panels mounted on the vehicle's exterior. When the project ended, the whole thing was sold to Chevron, which leveled the factory Sony had built to make the things, and buried the specs way deep somewhere. Why didn't they continue development and start licensing the things? They would have made a mint. (Tell me there's no possibility of a military contract there.)

They're not "energy" companies -- they're oil and coal companies. Their thought patterns haven't yet made it out of the Cretaceous.

And we're supposed to admire these people for their innovative, entrepreneurial spirit? Sheesh!

The Safety Net (Updated)

Specifically, Social Security, and what to expect from the lame-duck session. This post from Gaius Publius at AmericaBlog lays out some possibilities:

▪ It’s a safe bet Obama wants this [reductions to benefits]. He’s been angling for something like Simpson-Bowles for years. In fact, Simpson-Bowles is his commission. (For more on why I say this with such certainty, click here.)

▪ Unless the Dems take the House, there are only two places this can be stopped — at the White House and in the Senate. The White House is likely — but not certainly — a lost cause (see above). In addition, Sen. Whitehouse said last month that if Obama doesn’t take a strong stand, many Dem senators won’t either. I take that as a request from Mr. Whitehouse, in public, for Obama to do what he fears Obama won’t do. More confirmation of the first point.

▪ In the Senate, Bernie Sanders has marshalled 29 Democrats who will “oppose including Social Security cuts … in any deficit reduction package.” He, they and 96 activist organizations are organizing a resistance to this lame duck catastrophe.

My senior senator, Dick Durbin, is not among the signers of Sanders' letter. I wrote him, and got this response:

Thank you for contacting me regarding recent proposals to cut the Social Security trust fund. I appreciate hearing from you.

Social Security benefits provide more than 47 million Americans with financial stability during their retirement years. Millions of baby boomers will enter retirement over the next decade. We need to maintain our commitment to retirees by protecting the financial stability and integrity of the Social Security trust fund. I am troubled by recent proposals that would undermine the commitment Congress made.

The Social Security system is currently generating a surplus in tax revenues. However, its board of trustees projects that the trust fund will be depleted by 2041. This is a challenge, but not a crisis.

The last time we had a serious national debate about the solvency of Social Security was in the early 1980s, when Social Security truly faced an imminent crisis. Social Security would have run out of funds in July 1983. President Regan and then-Speaker Tip O’Neill, members of opposing political parties, came together and Congress passed bipartisan legislation in March 1983 that secured more than 50 years of solvency. That should be the model for how we proceed today.

I will continue to support and defend the important programs that have helped generations of Americans working through hard times. Although there are many difficult budgetary choices that lie ahead, we must ensure that we pursue a path of shared sacrifice, rather than one that unduly burdens hardworking families who are struggling.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please feel free to keep in touch.

Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator

Let me parse this a little:

"protecting the financial stability and integrity of the Social Security trust fund" -- there's nothing here that gives any guarantees, and it can just as easily translate as "cut benefits" as anything else. Update: It occurs to me that protecting the trust fund is not the issue -- that's a no-brainer, with a couple of very easy fixes -- the trust fund is under no pressure right now. What's at issue here, and what Durbin dodges, is the real threat of reduced benefits as a result of "deficit reduction," when Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit.

"we must ensure that we pursue a path of shared sacrifice" -- outside the Beltway, this translates as "we're going to stick it to you again."

And note how enamored he is of "bipartisan solutions." That might have worked in the 1980s, when someone in Washington was still interested in governing for the benefit of the country as a whole, rather than the 1%.

I''m taking Durbin as a surrogate for the White House on this, because he is one. I'm not reassured.

Here's some background from Richard RJ Eskow at Crooks and Liars, specifically on the "chained CPI":

So why would so many Democrats, from Barack Obama to Dick Durbin, push a Social Security benefit reduction that would lower that cost of living adjustment even more? The " chained-CPI" is a terrible idea, a back-door cut to Social Security that would be both economically tragic for seniors and politically disastrous for anyone who supported it.

Social Security Works calculated that under the chained-CPI "the average earner at age 45 who begins receiving disability benefits would get a $333 benefit cut at age 55, and a nearly $700 cut by age 65. By age 75 ... that person faces a loss of over $1,000, an 8.1 percent cut." The President said of this change, "Most folks would hardly notice."

(You can get a sense of how much you'd lose under this proposal here, and then decide whether you'd notice.)

Some of these Dems have also suggested raising the retirement age even further than it's scheduled to be raised. That's a benefit cut, too.

Write your Senator, especially if he's not among the signers of Sanders' letter.

About Those Adoption Services

We now learn that, in Boston at least, Catholic Charities closed their adoption services on direct orders from the Vatican, over the protest of its Board. From the Bangor Daily News:

“This is just frankly not true at all,” said [Peter] Meade [former board chairman] during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. The call was organized by a group called Mainers United for Marriage, which favors legalizing same-sex marriage in Maine. “I’ve heard [campaigns using the Boston Catholic Charities example] and frankly presumed because it was incorrect that people would straighten it out. That is certainly not what happened. I know in campaigns that people sometimes stretch credulity, but this is going way beyond that. Opponents of the freedom to marry in Maine have tried to rewrite history to create fear and uncertainty among voters.”

Catholic Charities of Boston formerly held a state-issued contract funded by taxpayer dollars to provide adoption services, and placed 13 children with same-sex couples between 1989 and 2006. The work was done in accordance with a Massachusetts anti-discrimination law that requires taxpayer-funded services to be provided equitably and without regard to sexual orientation, among other things.

Meade said that the Vatican demanded in 2006 that Catholic Charities end its adoption service, despite a unanimous vote by the charity’s local board to continue adoptions.

“Frankly, the only criteria for us was what was in the best interest of the child and we thought the Vatican was changing that,” said Meade. “People are suggesting in the campaign that it had something to do with the [same-sex marriage law] that allowed for marriage equality. That’s not correct.”

So basically, the Church had no objection to placing children with same-sex couples over the course of seventeen years, but when marriage equality entered the picture, suddenly it's the end of the world. It would be interesting to know how much taxpayer funding the CC of Boston gave up on this move.

I'm not going to comment on the fact that the anti-marriage groups continue to lie about this, except to note that, if you read this blog, you know that's an assumption, and a well-founded one. Most of what the professional gay-bashers come up with is nowhere near being factual.

John Aravosis has an interesting take on the whole funding question:

It’s interesting that Catholic Charities is trying to claim that it’s still the Catholic Church, so civil rights laws shouldn’t apply to it. Really? The American taxpayer is funding the Catholic Church’s proselytizing to the tune of $2.8 billion a year? Really? I’m a bit confused about that one. I didn’t think our government funded any faith. If the Catholic Church is getting nearly $3bn a year to practice its faith, then I hope reform Judaism and the nice Protestants are each getting $3bn as well. Are they? I doubt it. So how is it that the Catholic church is now claiming that its charity work is somehow its faith, when we’d never fund such proselytizing in the first place?

(Via.)

Fiddling Around

I'm not sure I love this, although it's easier to read. I may jigger it a little. What do you think?

I may also bolt from Blogger completely, unless they can tell me how to get my navbar back. It vanished about the time I got shifted over, kicking and screaming, to the new interface (which, by the way, sucks).

Maybe I'll finally set up my own real website.

Sociopaths Redux

Remember this post? That's the one where I noted "small business" owners telling their employees how they should vote if they know what's good for them. Well, Think Progress has an update:

Over the past few weeks we've seen a lot of employers telling their employees they need to vote for Mitt Romney if they expect to keep their jobs. The most recent stories come via Koch Industries, ASG Software, and Westgate Resorts.

It turns out they may have been listeners on this conversation, which took place on June 7, 2012. The NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business) held a conference call with Mitt Romney and members. At the end of the call, Mitt concluded his remarks with this:

I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections. And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope — I hope you pass those along to your employees. Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision and of course doing that with your family and your kids as well.

(Via C&L)

Too Funny

German daredevil jumps into frozen swimming pool -- he's going to "break the ice."

The Sociopath Edition (Updated)

It looks like it's time for another round of Disgusting People:

Let's start with a couple of CEOs of "small businesses" who are obviously Republicans of the worst sort -- you know, the kind who think they own their employees:

Westgate Resorts CEO David Siegel came under fire this week for sending an email to his employees demanding that they vote for Mitt Romney and threatening to downsize the company if they don't. But Siegel's email isn't an outlier. It fits a pattern of imperious CEOs attempting to marshal the support of their employees in pursuit of their own political interests.

Up w/ Chris Hayes has exclusively obtained an email sent by the CEO of a Florida-based software firm, ASG Software Solutions, to his over 1,000 employees asking them to vote for Romney for president and suggesting that their jobs may be at stake if Romney doesn't win. The subject line of the email, sent by ASG President and CEO Arthur Allen on Sept. 30, asks: "Will the US Presidential election directly impact your future jobs at ASG? Please read below."

Allen then suggests that the company may have to downsize, or be bought by a larger company, if President Obama is re-elected, and suggests that massive cuts and layoffs would ensue if that occurs.

I really can't think of anything to say about that -- it's pretty much self-explanatory.

Darrel Issa (R-Somewhere South of Reality) could be a regular on this kind of feature. He probably wastes more money with his "hearings" and "Congressional inquiries" than any bridge to nowhere ever proposed. Now it's Libya:

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) says that President Barack Obama's response to the attacks in Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador is like former President George W. Bush's widely-mocked 2003 "mission accomplished" speech which suggested that the U.S had won war in Iraq even though violence was only escalating in the country at the time.

Issa, who held hearings last week over the attacks, on Sunday told CBS host Bob Schieffer that he had determined that the Obama administration had downplayed the attacks in Benghazi because it wanted the appearance that the country had been stabilized.

But Schieffer noted that Republicans had pressured the State Department to cut security by voting to slash about $500 million from the embassy security budget over the past two years.

"Quite frankly, we believe that they didn't want the appearance of needing the security," the California Republican insisted. "The fact is, they are making a decision to not put security in because they don't want the presence of security."

Issa, as usual, is full of it -- it was Republicans who cut the allocation for embassy security, not the State Department. What a weasel.

And the crowning glory, the sociopath supreme, none other than Mitt Romney, who can't let a good tragedy go to waste:

The father of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya who was killed in the attack in Benghazi last month, said his son’s death shouldn’t be politicized in the presidential campaign.

Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, has criticized President Barack Obama for not providing adequate security in Libya, saying the administration has left the country exposed to a deadly terrorist attack.

You'll recall that Romney issued a statement slamming the administration over the attck in Benghazi before the dust had settled, and then caught hell for it from just about everybody.

John Aravosis has a good summary of this one at AmericaBlog.

And I've just started going through the news this morning. You really have to wonder what the country is coming to.

Update: I just ran across this little tidbit. I think an appropriate alternate titled for this post would be "Brazen."

Reviews in Brief: Some Thoughts on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings

I broke down and bought the DVDs for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, mostly because I got them really cheap. After watching a couple of times, I have some thoughts. This is not really a "review" as such, just some things I noticed. (I should note that this is based on the DVD of the theatrical release. I'm not sure I could survive the extended version.)

First, a caveat: Adaptations from one medium to another are, as they say, fraught with consequences. One of the most successful adaptations I've seen was Brokeback Mountain, and that was developed from a short story. One might guess, then, that adapting a trilogy of novels that run well over a thousand pages would pose some risks. I've tried to stay away from comparisons, because the film is not the book, but there are a number of problem areas that caught my attention that are, I think, internal to the film.

Character and motivations: What I call the "basis" for the action. A few things jumped out at me: Merry and Pippin wind up on the quest by happenstance, and there's really no foundation for their participation aside from that. We get no real sense of a bond between them and Frodo that would support their involvement on any other than the most rudimentary level. Likewise, the relationship between Eowyn and Faramir is left to assumption -- we get one glimpse of them standing next to each other at the coronation, but as I recall, there's not even a glance to seal the assumption. Aragorn as a character is well done, within a somewhat limited scope, but there's a dimension missing: what he is in the movie is an adventurer on his way to becoming a king and not a king on the way to reclaiming his throne, despite repeated references to his heritage. There's a difference. Leaving the reforging of Anduril until late in the story was a mistake, I think, as was glossing over Aragorn's confrontation with Sauron via the palantir. Again, it leaves important parts of the story with no basis -- too often, I found myself wonder "Why is this happening?"

I don't know what Cate Blanchett had been smoking -- she looked and acted like she was stoned -- but it should probably be illegal. Galadriel has none of the humanity one sees in the other elves, and again, it undercuts the impact of what she says and does.

On the whole, the characters for the most part lack depth, and given the caliber of the cast, I have to fault the script.

The one other important respect in which I think the film trilogy falls short is that Jackson couldn't seem to settle on a consistent tone. Even without reference to the books, what we're seeing is high heroic fantasy, in which we're assured the good guys win (Jackson even sets it up so that the Shire is completely untouched by Sauron's machinations), but the context is Hollywood realism in a fairly run-of-the-mill adventure story. It's an uneasy mix, and Jackson didn't seem to be able to find a comfortable middle ground.

The Fellowship of the Ring is certainly the best of the three -- the tightest and most coherent -- while the other two gradually come unglued.

I'll probably watch the whole thing again, at some point, in spite of Jackson's tendency to milk scenes that need to be tight and truncate scenes that need more development -- there are too many of those to enumerate, but take the final scene in the Grey Havens as the type specimen -- because there is credible work done by the cast, and the scenery is gorgeous. (And there's another disjunction with the action: there's more fantasy in the landscape than in the story.)

A World Made of Diamonds

Nope, not an idea for a new James Bond flick -- it's an actual world, and not all that far away.

Move over, Hope Diamond. The most famous gems on Earth have new competition in the form of a planet made largely of diamond, astronomers say.

The alien planet, a so-called "super-Earth," is called 55 Cancri e and was discovered in 2004 around a nearby star in our Milky Way galaxy. After estimating the planet's mass and radius, and studying its host star's composition, scientists now say the rocky world is composed mainly of carbon (in the form of diamond and graphite), as well as iron, silicon carbide, and potentially silicates.

At least a third of the planet's mass is likely pure diamond.

Looks familiar, somehow.

Some Happy Things

to set you up for the weekend:

First, I'm sure you've heard about Ryan Andreson, the Scout who met all the requirements for an Eagle Scout badge, which was denied because he's gay. He was invited go appear on Ellen deGeneres' show:

His mom's a total winner.

(Via Towleroad) Click through and sign the petition.

Check out the members of Congress who joined the NOH8 campaign in honor of National Coming Out Day. My own rep is there:

Nordstrom has come out in support of Washington's Referendum 74.

And this is just for fun: two of my favorite TV people, together:

And this is the joke of the day, courtesy of "Mr. Watchdog," Rep. Darryl Issa: possible hearings of the House Oversight Committee on the "fudged" job numbers.

I may add to this as I run across more goodies, but that should get you started.

Regnerus Update

Scott Rose, who's been bird-dogging the scandalously political "study" by Mark Regnerus and the Witherspoon Institute (because I believe in giving credit where credit it due), has published an interview with Dr. Andrew Perrin, a very highly respected cultural and political sociologist, about the "study." A snippet:

“I think the study is so thoroughly flawed, in particular with respect to its categorization of ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian,’ that no conclusions can be drawn with sufficient confidence to report, publicize, or use them.”

This will, of course, not stop NOM, the FRC, or anyone else from reporting, publicizing, or using them. The study has even been cited in one of the DOMA appeals. (You can tell the professional gay-bashers are getting desperate.)

Read the whole article at the link -- it's one of Rose's best on this subject.

Today's Must Watch

Rachel Maddow Interviews David Boies and Ted Olson. It's long, so make yourself comfortable.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(Via AmericaBlog.)

"Sam's Mother"

Who happens to be Sally Field, and this year's recipient of the Human Rights Campaign's Equality Award:

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Helping a Child Come Out

Can you imagine an article like this being published ten years ago, or even five?

The most important thing, Ms. Kahn said, is that parents need to find ways to let their children know that their love is unconditional, and that their home is a safe place where anything can be discussed. Adolescence can be a secretive time, but “it’s the role of the parents to try to create the open path,” she said. “The adults have to do a little work here.”

In other words, Ms. Kahn said, the job of the grown-ups is to help guide their children through adolescence. The terrain may be unfamiliar, but the role is not. It’s called parenting.

I find it impossible to understand those who subscribe to the importance of family and then turn around and reject their children who are gay. (Thanks to people like Tony Perkins.) Maybe they need to learn what parenting is -- it's not creating little clones of yourself. It's preparing your children to lead an independent life.

No Comment Necessary

Fortunately, this guy is only a state legislator -- from Arkansas, of course.

This one's more of a problem: he's on the House Science Committee. Now you know what Republicans think qualifies you to oversee our scientific initiatives.

Today's Must Read (A Twofer)

This post from Digby. I can't really excerpt it -- just let me note that she manages to summarize everything that's wrong with religious conservatives.

Update: Digby has more on Sally Quinn.

47%? What 47%?

Mitt Romney is backing off the 47% remark. In fact, he's in full damage-control mode:

Unfortunately, according to his running mate, Paul Ryan, the actual figure is 60%. (Apparently, Ryan didn't get the e-mail.) That's how many of us get back more from the government than we pay in, according to Ryan. We're all takers.

From Mother Jones:

"Right now about 60 percent of the American people get more benefits in dollar value from the federal government than they pay back in taxes," he said on the June 2010 edition of Washington Watch. "So we're going to a majority of takers versus makers."

Listen carefully, and you'll discover that most of us are not really Americans.

And I do wonder who fed him the numbers, since it's obvious from his comments on his budget proposal that he can't do math.

"Makers" and "takers"? I mean, really. This bullpucky is straight out of Ayn Rand, and to be honest with you, I find it very revealing about Ryan's level of maturity: most of us outgrew Rand by the time we'd left college. Think about it. The prototypical Randian hero is a kind of warped vision of a superhero out of a comic book: gifted with phenomenal powers (greed, insensitivity, greed, lack of empathy and compassion, greed, ruthlessness, greed, self-absorption -- and did I mention greed?), he stands head and shoulders above all others. A perfect image for the teenage male who is finally out on his own (more or less), and whose interpersonal skills are still pretty rudimentary.

And do note the emptiness in his eyes.

Following up

on my post from a couple of days ago, specifically the "religious freedom" decision I noted here.

And what should pop up today but this report from the Center for American Progress, on the state of "religious freedom" vis-a-vis marriage equality laws.

The key issue is here:

But opponents of marriage equality would like to think otherwise. They disingenuously argue that marriage equality will unduly require clergy to officiate weddings between same-sex couples even if doing so violates their religious beliefs. Opponents similarly claim that marriage equality laws violate the religious freedom of shopkeepers, restaurant owners, and private citizens by compelling them to provide goods and services to same-sex couples, even if they already must do so under existing nondiscrimination public accommodations laws.

Forget the requiring clergy to officiate at same-sex weddings garbage, because that's all it is. Not gonna happen, not in this country. (At least, not until the right and the "centrists" have managed to completely gut the Bill of Rights.)

This "religious freedom" of shopkeepers, et al., to discriminate on the basis of the personal prejudices clutched in their sweaty hands (because when it comes right down to it, that's all this particular form of "religious belief" is) is, once again, completely bogus. They have no such right, and never did. It's a given that there is no such thing as unlimited freedom -- there are always constraints, otherwise you don't have a society, you have a bunch of wild animals. (And even there, freedom is limited by your ability to feed yourself and find shelter -- that's the "freedom as zero sum game" so beloved on the right. Makes you wonder what universe they live in.) The basic rule in nondiscrimination laws is that if you're going to offer goods or services to the general public, you damned well offer them to the general public. Discrimination on any other basis than ability to pay has no place in an egalitarian society. (Ron Paul's little fantasy about the "marketplace" taking care of segregation is so jaw-droppingly stupid that it beggars belief -- for anyone but Ron Paul, I guess.)

What this particular interpretation of "religious freedom" represents is an all-out assault on religious freedom, no less.

Even with the ample religious exemptions built into marriage equality laws, some conservatives still claim that they do not go far enough. These opponents of equality want to go as far as to exempt individual citizens from providing goods and services to same-sex couples when doing so would allegedly be inconsistent with their faith. They believe, for example, that shopkeepers and restaurant owners should be able to deny goods and services to same-sex couples, all in the name of “religious freedom.” They similarly believe that public-sector employees, such as city clerks, should be able to deny government services to same-sex couples if they are religiously opposed to marriage equality.

In truth, exempting private citizens from existing laws that prohibit discrimination against gay individuals is not about safeguarding religious freedoms. Instead, it is simply about giving people a license to discriminate.

While this attitude seems to be endemic in the so-called "Christian" right, the most egregious example that comes to my mind is the Roman Catholic hierarchy, who have turned into quite a choice group of bullies. One sterling case in point is the controversy over adoption services for same-sex couples in Illinois. The Catholic Charities claimed that being forced to do so violated their "religious freedom" after the passage of Illinois' civil unions law. I suspect a bit of deception here -- Illinois had non-discrimination laws in place that precluded discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation that caused nary a ripple among the Catholic hierarchy. (Well, they didn't like that law, and lobbied against it, but there's only so far you can carry a bad idea.) However, they had been really active in lobbying against the civil unions bill, and their reaction to being "forced" to place children with same-sex parents (mind you, under the same criteria used to evaluate potential opposite-sex parents) was to threaten to close their adoption services. The state called them on it, and they lost. The party line, of course, is that they were "forced" to close down. The reality is that the state said you cannot use taxpayer money to discriminate against taxpayers, so Catholic Charities chose to terminate adoption services. (Frankly, at this point the idea that it's in the best interests of children to be left in the care of a Catholic organization is somewhat farfetched.)

One can make the case that Catholic Charities qualifies as a "religious organization" under the law (although if I remember correctly, Catholic Charities was created as a separate organization in order to be able to accept government money without violating the establishment clause. Funny thing about that.) But taking this to the realm of "personal religious beliefs" enters a whole new world of ugly. It is, as the report states, nothing more than a license to discriminate.

So actually, the conflict is not about "religious freedom," but it's about "religious supremacy" -- and it's the supremacy of particular sectarian doctrines. And that's all it is.

They Came in All Sizes

Dinosaurs, that it. Here's a somewhat belated announcement of another new species, this one about the size of a cat.

Not every dinosaur grew up to be a mighty predator like Tyrannosaurus rex or a hulking vegan like Apatosaurus. A few stayed small, and some of the smallest dinosaurs that ever lived — tiny enough to nip at your heels — were among the first to spread across the planet more than 200 million years ago.

Fossils of these miniature, fanged plant-eaters known as heterodontosaurs, or “different toothed reptiles,” have turned up as far apart as England and China. Now, in a discovery that has been at least 50 years in the making, a new and especially bizarre species of these dwarf herbivores has been identified in a slab of red rock that was collected in the early 1960s by scientists working in South Africa.

Actually, I think it's kind of cute.

Skin, scales and quills were added to a cast of the skull of Heterodontosaurus, the best-known heterodontosaurid from South Africa.

John Corvino on Marriage, Plus

John Corvino has done an excellent series of videos addressing the arguments against marriage equality, which you can find here. They are concise, clear, and rational, and go a long way toward illustrating just how empty those arguments are.

Here's the one on marriage as a threat to religious freedom:

My one objection to this one is that I think he should have stressed the fact that clergy who perform weddings do so as agents of the state -- their authority is secular, not religious.

And here's the Plus: one of the clearest and most sensible opinions on the limits of "religious freedom" I've seen from anyone. Via Think Progress:

The burden of which plaintiffs complain is that funds, which plaintiffs will contribute to a group health plan, might, after a series of independent decisions by health care providers and patients covered by [an employer's health] plan, subsidize someone else’s participation in an activity that is condemned by plaintiffs’ religion. . . . [Federal religious freedom law] is a shield, not a sword. It protects individuals from substantial burdens on religious exercise that occur when the government coerces action one’s religion forbids, or forbids action one’s religion requires; it is not a means to force one’s religious practices upon others. [It] does not protect against the slight burden on religious exercise that arises when one’s money circuitously flows to support the conduct of other free-exercise-wielding individuals who hold religious beliefs that differ from one’s own. . . .

[T]he health care plan will offend plaintiffs’ religious beliefs only if an [] employee (or covered family member) makes an independent decision to use the plan to cover counseling related to or the purchase of contraceptives. Already, [plaintiffs] pay salaries to their employees—money the employees may use to purchase contraceptives or to contribute to a religious organization. By comparison, the contribution to a health care plan has no more than a de minimus impact on the plaintiff’s religious beliefs than paying salaries and other benefits to employees.

Here's the full decision.

I Almost Forgot

It's Banned Books Week.

What are your favorites?

The Swamp

I'm finally ready to dive into the swamp muck that came out of various and sundry Catholic bishops last week. It's pretty stinky.

Let's start off with my own home-town atrocity, Cardinal Francis George. He's been relatively quiet lately, compared to someone like Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, but he couldn't resist using a celebratory mass honoring couples who have been married fifty years to slam gay couples:

Without mentioning gay marriage specifically, George also spoke briefly about the Catholic Church’s opposition to legalizing same-sex marriage, saying the institution of marriage is something that “comes to us from God,” not from the church or from the government. . . .

George said, “There must surely be ways in our civil society, where we can honor friendships, where we can respect other people, without destroying the nature of marriage. It is very important, for your whole lives, give witness to what marriage truly means. And while civil laws might change – if they do – then society will be the worse for it.”

OK, first point: I require some evidence that "marriage comes to us from God," and I'm afraid that quoting from the Bible won't do it. What the evidence says is that marriage is and always has been a human institution, created by societies as a means of recognizing families, or, to put it in more basic terms, the establishment of new households. Coming from a church that didn't even recognize marriage as a sacrament until the thirteenth century, claiming ownership of the institution is a bit much.

Second, the utter contempt in which George holds gay people and our relationships is evident in his reference to "friendships."

If I thought the man understood the nature of marriage at all, I might be inclined to listen, but he obviously doesn't have a clue, any more than the Church seems to have a clue as to the true nature of morality. Remember, this is the man who said that Chicago's Gay Pride parade could "morph into" a KKK gathering. Classy, that one.

And I'm sure the 400 couples celebrating their fifty years of marriage were more than delighted to have their celebration hijacked for some not-so-subtle politicking.

(Via HuffPo.)

And how about the Bishop of Springfield, Thomas John Paprocki, as long as we're talking about politicking?

Again, I am not telling you which party or which candidates to vote for or against, but I am saying that you need to think and pray very carefully about your vote, because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.

This is just to blatantly cynical that even I'm aghast. Of course he's telling people how to vote, but I'm sure he's got a fleet of lawyers who told him exactly how to phrase it so he can keep his 501(c)(3).

(Footnote: I notice the Catholic hierarchy is really big on "intrinsic" this and that -- as in, abortion is intrinsically evil, gay people are intrinsically disordered, and on down the line. As someone whose religion stresses that one is individually responsible for making moral choices, and who knows that those moral choices are made in a fluid milieu, this "intrinsic" bullshit is just that. Althoughj I might note that raping children is intrinsically sick.)

Mistermix at Balloon Juice has an on-point summation of Bishop Paprocki's little homily.

Moving farther afield, the Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, came out with a "pastoral letter" that turns out to be little more than sixteen pages of gay bashing. This is just a sample:

If our society enshrines in law a “civil” right to “marry” someone of one’s own sex, then any persons or groups that believe otherwise will be seriously disadvantaged in law and in fact. Already we hear public officials and news organizations refer to those of us who hold the conjugal view of marriage as “bigots.” States such as Illinois and Massachusetts have made it impossible for Catholic Charities to provide adoption services. Hotel managers, photographers, owners of reception halls, etc. who hold to the view of marriage as a conjugal partnership have had legal or civil actions taken against them. How long would the state permit churches, schools or parents to teach their children that homosexual activity is contrary to the natural law if homosexual marriage were a civil right? Already in Canada and other democratic nations “hate speech” laws have been used to harass or even arrest clerics who preach the Biblical message about marriage.

It's just one distortion and fabrication after another. Let's just take a quick run-through: 1) recognizing the right to marriage for same-sex couple disadvantages no one. People call you a bigot for expressing your desire to continue discriminating? That's called "the free marketplace of ideas," and your ideas aren't selling so well. Catholic Charities in Illinois and Massachusetts chose to close their adoption services rather than comply with long-standing anti-discrimination laws. Same holds true of hotel managers, photograpers, et al.: they are providing services to the public and fall under anti-discrimination laws as well. As for teaching children that homosexual behavior is contrary to natural law, it's not. At least, not any real natural laws, as opposed to the fantasy "natural law" promulgated by the Church. And the hate speech laws of foreign countries have no relevance here -- we don't have them, and we have fairly robust protections for free speech in this country.

Bottom line: total bullshit.

There was another story that I ran across, but my link was to the post at AmeericaBlog Gay, which is undergoing server transfer, and I can't retrieve the story. Fear not, though -- it's just as disgusting as those above.

Reviews in Brief: Joss Whedon's The Avengers

I saw The Avengers when it was in the theaters, and came right home and pre-ordered the DVD, which arrived Thursday. I have now watched the DVD three times, from you which you might infer that I love this movie. You'd be right.

If you have somehow avoided knowing anything about the film, the basic set-up is as follows: S.H.I.E.L.D. is working with the tesseract, a mysterious artifact retrieved from the depths of the ocean during the search for Captain America when he was being an icicle, trying to a) figure it out, and b) use it as a source of unlimited sustainable energy. However, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), still smarting from his exile from Asgard, has another use for it: he's going to conquer Earth, using the tesseract to create a portal to bring his army through from another dimension. So he manages to transport himself to the lab where the work is being done and steals the tesseract, magically coopting Dr. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and Agent Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of S.H.I.E.L.D., needs a response team, and starts to put it together: Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Dr. Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). They capture Loki and are transporting him back to headquarters when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) inserts himself into the picture, intent on taking Loki back to Asgard to face judgment there.

Then the fun begins.

This is Whedon's show, and it's terrific: he co-wrote the story, wrote the screenplay, and directed. It's hard to explain the appeal. (Well, aside from Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth running around in tights, and Robert Downey, Jr., being cute as all get-out, and Jeremy Renner's shoulders, and Mark Ruffalo naked in an abandoned warehouse -- you get the idea.) It's tight, focused, starts moving even before the opening titles and doesn't slow down (not much, at least). Visually, it's a treat as well --- even aside from the aforementioned eyecandy.

The actors are all in top form -- there's a lot of spiky back-and-forth and outright confrontations between Captain America and Iron Man, between Bruce Banner and Nick Fury, between Thor and everyone. And yet they somehow make themselves into a team, and the final battle scene -- which lasts about an hour -- is absolutely no holds barred. (The effects are, as you might guess, spectacular.)

The prize, I think, goes to Johannson as Black Widow -- not only is she a superb physical actress, but her character is multi-faceted and very subtly drawn.

Oh, and it's funny. There's some great throw-away lines sprinkled throughout the movie.

So, yeah, this is my movie of the year.

Marvel Studios/Paramount Pictures, 2012. Running time 143 minutes, rated PG. Full credits at IMDb, and a full review at Sleeping Hedgehog.

Period of Adjustment

It's been a weird couple of months, and I'm still adjusting to new routines. Plus, I got a cold, which puts my brain into sleep mode. There's been a lot to be outraged about, and I may try to catch up on some of it, but this one just hit me today. The story's around, but this report, via Balloon Juice, caught my attention. From the LA Times report:

Strategic Allied Consulting was hired to do voter registration drives in Florida, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada, and had been planning get-out-the-vote drives in Ohio and Wisconsin, according to Sproul.

Sproul owns another company, Lincoln Strategy Group, that was paid about $70,000 by the Mitt Romney campaign during the primaries to gather signatures. He said he created Strategic Allied Consulting at the request of the Republican National Committee because of the bad publicity stemming from the past allegations. In 2004, there were allegations in states such as Nevada and Oregon that employees of his firm -- which had a similar contract with the RNC -- registered Democratic voters and then destroyed their forms. (Sproul noted that no criminal charges were ever filed.)

Strategic Allied was set up at an address in Glen Allen, Va., and Sproul does not show up on the corporate paperwork.

“In order to be able to do the job that the state parties were hiring us to do, the [RNC] asked us to do it with a different company’s name, so as to not be a distraction from the false information put out in the Internet,” Sproul said.

(Emphasis mine.)

Two things about this: You'll note that the RNC and the state party organizations did not decline to do business with Sproul because of past allegations of fraud and other improprieties -- they just asked him to change his name, which is pretty revealing: they have no problem doing business with shady characters if it gets the results they want, and they haven't figured out that this is the Information Age -- you can't hide shit like this.

Also, too, the stress on the fact that no criminal charges were ever brought: It's a sad statement on the degree of cynicism in this country about our justice system that this carries no weight whatsoever. Perhaps I'm more cynical than most, but my first question was, "Were the state Attorneys General, or the DAs in charge of the investigations, Republicans?" If they were Democrats, then maybe there's no fire, in spite of the smoke. If they were, big whip.

And "distraction"? Yeah, I guess if you're going back to the same shady character and it's public information, it might be a distraction -- that is, it would distract from your own distractions about "voter fraud."

The mindset here is staggering.

Now that I'm feeling better, maybe I'll go after the Catholic bishops -- they've been in rare form lately.

Reviews in Brief: Brian Michael Bendis et al: Avengers vs. X-Men, #0-3

Well, my two favorite superhero teams have finally crossed swords, thanks to Brian Michael Bendis and the folks at Marvel.

Hope Summers is the only mutant born since M-Day. She's with the X-Men, where her life is just one long bout of training. She's a young woman now, and like young people in general, is feeling the restrictions imposed on her activities by her elders.

The Avengers have discovered that the Phoenix Force, a cosmic-scale energy pool that it capable of destroying whole worlds, is headed toward Earth and figure out that it's headed right at Hope. In the first of a series of remarkably stupid moves, Steve Rogers (Captain America) goes to Utopia, home of the mutants, to demand that Hope be handed over for safe-keeping. Unfortunately, Scott Summers (Cyclops) can be just as stupidly stubborn as Captain America, particularly when faced with not onlyl a confrontation, but a whole shipload of Avengers. The ensuing pitched battle is no real surprise, but Wolverine, compounding the stupidity in ready supply on both sides, takes off on his own to capture Hope. Apparently, no one told him that she's already very powerful. Spooked, she sets off on her own while Wolverine is busy regrowing his skin -- among her other attributes, Hope can generate fire out of pretty much nothing.

In spite of all the arrogance and idiocy demonstrated on both sides, particularly by two men who should know better, this is turning out a to be a lot of fun. Needless to say, there's lots of action, and both teams are seeing a chance to settle some old scores. This, happily, is not at the expense of some strongly drawn characterizations -- Cyclops, in particular, reveals himself to be a shrewd leader who always has a back-up. The main responsibility for the scripting has fallen on Brian Michael Bendis, and he's holding up his end quite well.

Frank Cho penciled #0, then John Romita, Jr., picked it up for the next three numbers, ably supported by Scott Hanna's clean, incisive inks and colors by the incomparable Laura Martin.

This one's a lot of fun -- I feel like a fan boy, running up to the comics store every two weeks to pick up the next number. I'm not sure yet whether I'm going to continue reviewing them in chunks. We'll see.

Compare and Contrast

Reactions to the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi and the embassy in Cairo:

From the citizens of Benghazi:

More pictures at the link.

And now, Mitt Romney, via AmericaBlog:

The gunfire at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, had barely ceased when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney seriously mischaracterized what had happened in a statement accusing President Barack Obama of "disgraceful" handling of violence there and at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

"The Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks," Romney said in a statement first emailed to reporters at 10:09 p.m. Eastern time, under the condition it not be published until midnight.

In fact, neither a statement by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo earlier in the day nor a later statement from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton offered sympathy for attackers. The statement from the Cairo Embassy had condemned anti-Muslim religious incitement before the embassy walls were breached. In her statement, issued minutes before Romney's, Clinton had offered the administration's first response to the violence in Libya, explicitly condemning the attack there and confirming the death of a State Department official.

This is from an AP fact check, which you can find complete here. And Romney can't even get his own party behind him on this.

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice ignores him entirely with a gracious statement, including thoughts of Ambassador Chris Stevens, "a wonderful officer and a terrific diplomat who was dedicated to the cause of freedom." Republican congressional leadership has also been muted and responsible in their responses, none of them—Paul Ryan included—even referencing Romney's action, or using the attacks as an opportunity to attack the administration. House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed their sympathy for the families and their resolve for unity, with McConnell saying, “We honor the Americans we lost in Libya and we will stand united in our response.”

Former Republican presidential nominee John McCain was actually quite classy.

Just watched an excellent and moving stmt by Sec. Clinton- just the right message and tone.

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) September 12, 2012

And it wouldn't do to miss the pictures:

That expression is henceforth to be known officially as "The Romney Smirk."

There are people who actually want this man to be president.

This Could Be Big

Ir probably will be -- computers that operate on light:

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have made an important advance in this frontier of photonics, fashioning the first all-optical photonic switch out of cadmium sulfide nanowires. Moreover, they combined these photonic switches into a logic gate, a fundamental component of computer chips that process information.

The nano-wires can manipulate light to make switches, the basic component of computers. Did you get that? Nano-switches. As in really, really, really tiny.

Vernor Vinge wrote a novel a few years ago, Rainbow's End, that postulated people being able to access the Internet through their clothes. Sony, I think, has already debuted a prototype of a computer built into eyeglasses. With this, they could build computers into contact lenses.

It's an amazing world. It's sort of sobering to realize that we're living in a science-fiction novel.

Wow

One hell of a speech from Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver II.

Reviews in Brief: Andrew Stanton's John Carter

So John Carter arrived from Amazon, and I watched it.

John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is a Civil War veteran who has lost everything, and has gone West to seek his fortune. Somehow, he's gotten wind of a "cave of gold," and that's what he's after. He finds it, but after killing a man -- a Thern, a race who have a strange and fairly unwholesome involvement in the decline and fall of civilizations -- who's trying to kill him, he finds himself transported to a strange place where he is taken captive by a race of very tall, skinny, green four-armed people, the Tharks. He is given a drink of something by a woman named Sola (Samantha Morton) that enables him to understand the language. He soon falls in with Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins), a princess who is fleeing an unwanted marriage with Sab Than (Dominic West), the ruler of Zodanga, a rival city that has been engaged in a civil war with her home city of Helium for a thousand years and is about to win. The marriage is the price of peace. Turns out Carter is on Barsoom (Mars), and winds up inextricably involved in the civil war, in spite of starting out just trying to get home. Things are complicated by the interference of Matai Shang (Mark Strong), the leader of the Therns who has his own plans for the people of Barsoom.

And that is a really bare-bones summary. It's a complex milieu and a very intricate plot. After that, where to start?

OK -- the Martians, in their infinite variety. The Tharks, who are humanoid but certainly not human -- physically, at least -- are very well executed. The animatronics are of a very high order, very lifelike, and this carries through to the native animals. The voice actors, who in addition to Morton include Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas, Sola's father and the "emperor" of the Tharks, bring them to life.

The actors who portray the humans are equally good, but in some places they're fighting a script that veers into bombast and is sometimes incomprehensible. (Although I didn't find as many WTF? moments as some writers have claimed.)

Yeah, it's not the greatest heroic fantasy film out there, but it's worth watching. Of course, one reason I like is probably this:

For full credits, see IMDb.

Thirty-Five Years

Voyager 1 and 2 were launched roughly thirty-five years ago. They're still working.

Unlike some who are writing about the anniversary, by the time the Voyagers launched I was old enough that space exploration had become a norm for me -- I was an adult when Neil Armstrong made the first moon walk. It was still exciting, though. And the pictures they sent back! (The space program has been part of my life since childhood -- I remember my father taking me out into the back yard about 4 am one morning to see Sputnik. I was in sixth grade. Now it seems sometimes as though half the stars you see at night are actually satellites.)

Here's a close-up of Ganymede by Voyager 1:

And the clouds on Jupiter look like an artist's rendering, but this is actually a photograph:

We didn't know until Voyager got there that Jupiter had rings; they're very faint, and pretty unstable. Saturn, on the other hand:

And now Voyager 1 is getting ready to leave home, so to speak -- it's headed out of the solar system, into interstellar space.

That's exciting.

You Have to See It to Believe It (Updated)

It all started out when a linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, Brendan Ayanbadejo, expressed his support for same-sex marriage (which, as you'll remember, is on the ballot in Maryland this year).

Apparently, Maryland Delegate Emmett C. Burns, Jr., thought this was going too far and wrote to the owner of the Ravens demanding that he shut Ayanbadejo up:

Rob Tisinai points out the problem with this:

This is a state legislator…writing on official Maryland House of Delegates letterhead to a man’s boss asking him to shut down his employee’s free speech.

It's not a matter of criticizing Ayanbadejo's stance on the issue. It's a matter of using one's public office to attempt to quash a private citizen's freedom of speech by demanding that his boss shut him up. That, to me, says "government interference in fundamental rights."

Well, Burns got a response from another football player, Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings:

I find it inconceivable that you are an elected official of Maryland's state government. Your vitriolic hatred and bigotry make me ashamed and disgusted to think that you are in any way responsible for shaping policy at any level. The views you espouse neglect to consider several fundamental key points, which I will outline in great detail (you may want to hire an intern to help you with the longer words)[.]

That's just the beginning. Read the whole thing -- it's perfect.

Here's an appearance by Kluwe on The Ed Show discussing the whole flap. Ayabadejo has been fairly quiet about it, but maybe that's the best strategy -- he's got a lot of supporters.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Oh, and as Tisinai points out, Burns really put his foot in it with his remark about no other NFL players having expressed an opinion on marriage equality. The list includes:

Cleveland Browns linebacker Scott Fujita, Houston Texans linebacker Connor Barwin, Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, New England Patriots safety Bret Lockett, New York Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie

And where, you might ask, are those stalwart defenders of "free speech" Tony Perkins, Brian Brown, Peter LaBarbera, and the whole crew? Yeah, exactly. Update: Kluwe published a "cleaned up" version of his letter that is, if anything, even funnier. Read it at his blog.

Finally, Something Exciting in the News

No, it's not about the DNC, or the RNC, or any of our favorite hate groups -- it's much more important. From NYT:

Among the many mysteries of human biology is why complex diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and psychiatric disorders are so difficult to predict and, often, to treat. An equally perplexing puzzle is why one individual gets a disease like cancer or depression, while an identical twin remains perfectly healthy.
Enlarge This Image

Now scientists have discovered a vital clue to unraveling these riddles. The human genome is packed with at least four million gene switches that reside in bits of DNA that once were dismissed as “junk” but that turn out to play critical roles in controlling how cells, organs and other tissues behave. The discovery, considered a major medical and scientific breakthrough, has enormous implications for human health because many complex diseases appear to be caused by tiny changes in hundreds of gene switches.

I remember reading about "junk" DNA years ago, back when I was reading Scientific American on a regular basis. Nobody knew what it did, and most people figured it was just leftovers -- stuff that was still hanging around after it had lost its original use. We should have known better -- evolution is notorious for finding new uses for things. (We can no longer use our big toes for grasping branches -- well, most of us can't -- but it's much harder to keep our balance without them.)

This also goes a long way, I think, toward explaining things like sexual orientation and all the other phenomena in human behavior that partake of that "stair-step" pattern: There are probably thousands, if not millions, of gene switches that influence how things like sexual orientation are established and how they manifest. Eventually someone will get around to researching the behavioral influences here, but i'm betting that's at least part of what they find.

(As a footnote to that, check out this article from The Age on how oxytocin is related to behavior.)

My mood is much better now -- I was really getting sick of the convention coverage.