Finding God in a Dog

"I'll never listen to what Slade says."

President of Catholic Bishops Conference Cardinal Dolan bribed pedophile priests to go away quietly
mouse
[info]maxomai
Oh dear.

Say this for Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: He sure is a multi-tasker.

When he's not threatening to cease "liv[ing] out the imperatives of our faith to serve, teach, heal, feed, and care for others" unless all American women are denied access to contraception, using his blog to smear children raped and molested by priests, coordinating massive lawsuits against the Obama administration because women's health care makes him sad, appearing on TV to false witness through his teeth, appreciating "the work done" by the hate group Catholic League, or organizing a national "fortnight" of civil disobedience, he's apparently busy praying that no one will find out about how, before he became the most powerful Catholic figure in America, he secretly bribed pedophile priests to leave the Church quietly.


And then the New York Times found out. Quoting that story now:

Questioned at the time about the news that one particularly notorious pedophile cleric had been given a “payoff” to leave the priesthood, Cardinal Dolan, then the archbishop, responded that such an inference was “false, preposterous and unjust.”


Except that it turned out to be absolutely, positively true.

So, the Roman Catholic Church has no moral authority left. And their spiritual authority only lasts as long as one doesn't take matters into their own hands. That means that the only thing left sustaining the Church ... is cultural inertia. Yeah, that'll last.
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End Of May MISCELLANY
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[info]maxomai

  • Last weekend's massacre in Syria is fanning the fires for another war. The United States is preparing. Syrian rebels are preparing. And SOS Clinton is not-so-tacitly pressuring the Russians to stay out of it.

  • North Carolina real estate interests are pushing for a law that would force planners to ignore global warming predictions of sea level rise. Without those data, planners need to rely on historical data that predict a rise of anywhere from four to sixteen inches. Global warming predicts a rise of one meter, or about 40 inches. My advice: don't buy coastal property in North Carolina. Or if you do, be ready to dump it on a sucker in the next few decades.

  • This woman uncovered massive fraud in Citibank's mortgage lending process, which continued right up to her lawsuit in March 2011. THE GOOD: she won $31 million in that lawsuit. THE BAD: the lawsuit alleged, in part, that the fraud practices that led to the 2008 meltdown are still ongoing in 2011. They're probably still ongoing in 2012 as well. The culture of self-denial runs deep. THE UGLY: The DOJ is promising criminal charges. We're waiting, and none too patiently.

  • Oregon's health care reform effort is rolling right along.

  • "Calculate the trajectory of a projectile under gravity and subject to air resistance." This problem was posed by Newton, has stumped mathematicians for centuries, and was finally solved by a 16-year-old working on a school project. The student chalks it up to naivity.

  • Windows 8, reveiwed here. The interesting (as in "oh god") parts of the EULA discussed here. Yes, I'll still use it when it comes out, properly sequestered in a virtual machine as it should be. But now I'm determined to not use it for anything important.

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A rare public personal update...
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[info]maxomai
Three Hands Press says:

Forthcoming in June...

Announcement of a new magical work by Robert Fitzgerald, illuminated by the eldritch woodcuts of our own Liv Rainey Smith.


Stay tuned, kids.
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A note on #SpaceX and the future of space travel.
mouse
[info]maxomai
NASA estimate of the total cost for SpaceX to R&D the Falcon 9 system: $3.6 billion.

DOD budget for Joint Strike Fighter R&D: over $9 billion for 2012 alone.

Total cost of shuttle program: $196 billion over 40 years.

There are a lot of things that government can do better than any corporation, simply because the economic logic of leaving such things in the hands of the private sector make things worse. Space travel, carefully regulated, is a notable exception. Continued space travel as a strictly government venture is too risky for political reasons. Privatizing space travel turns the political risks into economic risks - and it turns out that the economic risks aren't that bad after all. Of course, the biggest customer will continue to be the government, but I can see that changing as the cost of travel goes down.
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An Open Letter to the Democratic National Committee about #WiRecall | Attn @DWStweets
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[info]maxomai
Dear considerate folks at the Democratic National Committee,

I was interested to read your fundraising letter this morning:


maxomai --

Picture this:

It's the morning of June 4th. You head to the airport to catch your free flight to New York City. Enjoy the in-flight snack or movie. That evening, a car picks you up and takes you to the main event.

And that's where you meet Presidents Obama and Clinton.

I don't really know what else to say.

Stop imagining -- make it happen.

Donate today to be automatically entered for a chance to meet Presidents Obama and Clinton in New York City -- airfare and accommodations are on us:


I've got a better image for you.

Picture this:

It's the morning of June 5th. As in, two in the morning. The polls closed in Wisconsin's recall election hours ago, and Tom Barrett managed a narrow win after a massive get out the vote effort. Scott Walker and the Republicans are licking their wounds after a close but stinging defeat in the recall election. Unions and progressives everywhere are energized, Rick Scott and other look-pretty-and-hold-the-pen types are breaking out the Rolaids, and the Koch Brothers and other corporate powers are on notice that they can't spend enough to save their lackies if they go too far.

That's the future that you can make happen. But you can't do it just by sending out fundraising letters. You need to pour serious money - tens of millions of dollars - into a get out the vote effort to save Wisconsin.

I really don't know what else to say.

Actually, that's not true. Let me add this: if you guys won't do it, then I will. The money that I would donate to the DNC will go instead to Tom Barrett. And for crissakes get some spine.
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Memorial Day Weekend CHEERS and JEERS!
mouse
[info]maxomai
CHEERS to the US Dollar, which is, in the wake of the weakness in BRIC growth and the crisis in Europe, the only safe currency right now.

JEERS to crooks getting off scott free; in this case, the Lehman Brothers executives who caused the 2008 economic crisis. The SEC recommended no charges or other sanctions be brought against them. And if you don't like it, the cops are there to pepper spray, billy club and LRAD you into submission. Yup.

JEERS to bigots, part one. Check out this letter sent to my friend Greg Harris and several other pro-gay rights legislators in Illinois. No. Seriously. Go look at it, because I guarantee you it's going to be in our grandchildren's history books as an example of the kind of ugly crap gays and lesbians used to have to put up with in the United States. Among other things, it recycles the old disproven tropes about what causes homosexuality, brings up the old HIV/AIDS argument in gay men (without bothering to address the virtual lack of STDs in lesbian women), and recycles the myths about "traditional" monogamous marriage. This letter was written by Peter LaBarbera of Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality, Wayne Lela of Heterosexuals Organize for a Moral Environment (that's HOME), and John McCartney of Citizens Concerned About Media.

JEERS to bigots, part two. If a group of right-wing idiots rampaged through the streets of the nation's capital demanding the deportation of black people, and a conservative legislator joined in saying that blacks should be isolated from the cities, our media would be all over it. If this happened in South Africa, or Europe, or Russia, or South America, we'd have everyone to the left of Sean Hannity calling for a boycott of that nation. So where is this happening that we're not hearing a peep about it? Right here.

JEERS to Curt Schilling. Step one: borrow millions of taxpayer dollars to start your company. Step two: whine that you and your other fellow John Galts never had to take a dime of government money. Step three: fire everyone. If you want to know why I think objectivism and its mutant children are a joke, this man is a case in point.

CHEERS to Gay Marriage. For the third time now, a Federal judge has ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. SCOTUS is going to have to take this up in the next few years. Remember: Mittens stands behind a Constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage in the United States, and even stands opposed to civil unions.

CHEERS to amusing idiots. I'm 100% opposed to bombing Iran, but their stupid shenanigans still amuse me. In this case, it's their pronouncements that a recently revealed manuscript of the Gospel of Barnabas threatens Christianity because it apparently claims that Jesus (A) wasn't crucified at all and (B) predicted the coming of Mohammed (PBUH). As someone who has little sympathy for Christianity, my first response is to wonder what's in the water in Iran. If these people weren't totally clueless, they'd understand that the big threat to Christianity isn't Islam at all, but in fact the same enemy that threatens Iranian Islam: modernity.

CHEERS to Amazon.com employees, who won the right to air conditioning in the warehouse. This is why we still need a labor movement, folks.

CHEERS to those that died and those that were left behind. The dead have their honor. Those left behind have the aftermath. For what it's worth, the Vice President has some advice on dealing with the aftermath.
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Cong. Mike Coffman (R-CO): "I stand by my statement, I misspoke and I apologize," over and over
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[info]maxomai
Mike Coffman tried to reap the wind of the Birther movement and got his sails torn off. Word got out that he said, at a conservative fundraiser, that he didn't know whether the President was born in the US and that Obama is "not an American at heart."

What he wasn't considering at the time, apparently, is that his district was redrawn to include the town of Aurora, and was now more favorable to Democrats than in the last election. So when a tape of his comments got out, Democrats saw it as an opportunity to get out the vote and eke out a win for his opponent, Joe Miklosi. Coffman's strategists must have seen the writing on the wall, so they told him to lay low while they engaged in damage control.

Then the local media cornered Coffman. The result, below (or here), is a train wreck.



Isn't that precious?

Needless to say, Joe Miklosi has seized on this, both with a petition telling Coffman to "stop hiding," and, more importantly, with fundraising pitches.

2012 is shaping up to be a dogfight instead of a blowout, and flipping House seats isn't going to be easy. Colorado's 6th district is, after these gaffes, one of the few places where Democrats have a good chance to flip a district.
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May 22 MISCELLANY!
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[info]maxomai
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May 21 MISCELLANY!
mouse
[info]maxomai

  • Believe it or not, Ron Paul's had a real impact in the Republican nomination process by capturing the majority of delegates in recent caucuses. He's not going to be the candidate, but he could push for changes in the GOP platform. Legalizing pot? Ending the wars? Probably not. Austrian economics? End the Fed? Maybe. For another POV, you can do worse than Justin Raimondo.

  • Anonymous does more than just release ultimata and take down corporate and government front pages, you know. They also expose child pornography. They also do birthdays.

  • More Birther silliness here. It's one thing to question the consensus. It's another to secede from reality altogether and form a brand new party line.

  • "We will not do as we are told. Instead, we will do what is just." Thus sayeth the Catholic League. And these brave, bold words would be admirable, if what they wanted wasn't to deny women basic reproductive health care. Meanwhile, the RCC's bishops are investigating the girl scouts. All in the name of enforcing a male-defined model of womanhood. My advice on the matter: forget it, boys, the clock stops for no one.

  • I need to post this more often on FaceBook.

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When a poll is too good to be true
mouse
[info]maxomai
Check out this poll from Vanderbilt:

Tennessee
Obama 41
Romney 42
MOE 4
N = 1002

Obama's within one point of Romney in deep red Tennessee! Wow!

Just one problem: this is a poll of Tennessee residents. The same poll shows Romney up seven with registered voters, which is a proper subset of residents. The likely voter model in Tennessee, when those polls start coming out, will be even worse for Obama. And in November, barring the absolute collapse of the Romney campaign and a consequent Obama landslide, Tennessee will go in Romney's column.
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