Rand Paul Appears to Back Sharia Law

I have recently been seeing a series of campaign ads for Rand Paul on certain liberal blogs. These are Google ads that target keywords, and thus regularly appear on pages that argue against those things supported by the ads. But the Tea Party slant of this ad series offends me. The 1976 Hyde amendment already and still prohibits tax funding of abortions, except in cases of rape and incest. That is, if you can go to court and get a judge to rule your pregnancy as such, you can then get federal funding for your abortion. This does not happen very often, as the abortion is cheaper than a court appearance. But the goal of this campaign seems to say that, as in the Old Testament and thus Sharia law, a poor rape victim must bear and raise the child of her rapist (and marry him, if he so chooses). This only applies to impoverished women; not the sort of folks that congresspeople know. After all, their servants have jobs. Rand Paul and the Tea Party: Old Fashioned Morality for those who can't afford better.

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Who is Killing the Post Office?

I've been wondering this for years, as the USPS has been struggling to subsidize the Congressionally mandated 75 years in advance retirement plan during the worst downturn in the economy since the Great Depression. In order to continue, they have to shut down stations, limit deliveries, and eliminate next-day mail. Or be in violation of a Federal Unfunded Mandate. Note that the Post Office receives $0.00 in taxpayer money, yet Congress gets to tell it how much it is allowed to charge, how much it has to pre-pay on all its benefit programs, and even how many free perks it has to give to members of Congress. In my lifetime, the price of a First Class stamp has gone from the price of a cup of coffee (5¢) to less than a third of that. We pay less for postage now than ever before in history, in terms of coffee, movie tickets, ounces of gold, or any hard measure. Yet Congress in its wisdom has been steadily adding burdens and removing permissions in the last decade. And I have been wondering, why? Sure, the answer is clearly pandering to the lobbyists. But whose? Who really wants to kill the only company that delivers to every house in the country? Last night, I think I got my answer. I was watching the news, flipping through the networks, and every outlet covered this story: Record online holiday sales trigger record shipping day.So which stations covered which shipping company? Who covered this story for the USPS? For DHL? For UPS? No one. But FedEx was given minutes of free advertising (as an in-depth story) on every network. Thus my wacky conspiracy theory of the day is: FedEx is behind the lobbyists who are behind the legislation that is gutting the post office.

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What Most Sets of Commandments Get Wrong

I recently read Penn Jillette's 10 Commandments for atheists, written as a response to a challenge by Glenn Beck. Most of Penn's rules made good sense. But one went off the rails, I opine. He included one found in most mistranslations of the Christian Ten: "Don't Lie." Penn explicitly adds the caveat: "(You know, unless you're doing magic tricks and it's part of your job. Does that make it OK for politicians, too?)" But the premise is basically flawed. The original line in Exodus 20:16 (KJV) is Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. This is a very specific form of lie. Even too specific. Not only is it an injunction against perjury, but only against perjury against your landholding neighbor, as opposed to people from other places, or to property such as women and slaves. Of course we all must lie on occasion. How else can we answer, "Isn't she the most beautiful baby ever?" or "Honey, do I look puffy?" Would it be false testimony to confirm a harmless bias one on one? Yet I suggest that the proper commandment should be, "Don't bear false witness." Period. Don't testify to things of which you are not absolutely sure; that you have not personally experienced. Not in a public forum. Don't repeat "what everybody knows" unless you preface it with an appropriate waffle, such as "I heard that someone else heard that..." But this might make it difficult to testify to the all-embracing love of a demonstrably genocidal God. A Google image search of "Testify" gives mostly Christian imagery.

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Walmart Censors the Bible

Granted that the one they chose to censor isn't a typical, dull, dry Bible that you actually have to read to get to the good parts. This one is gaily illustrated with photographs of Lego™ dioramas for every juicy story. Years of work went into developing the Brick Testament as an online presence. Then a paper publisher got interested, and more work went into producing several volumes (Available on Amazon). But Walmart refused to distribute the books as is, full of literal illustrations of the stories in the Holy book, including the sexual parts. So the publisher persuaded the author to pull the most explicit scenes. And they produced a new volume specifically for Walmart and its clientele. But after an initial small order, Walmart felt that even this censored version of the Bible was still too graphic, and refused to carry the volume. The other Bibles they sell, all of which include even the stories and scenes excised from the Brick Testament, are still for sale. Want more details? Here's a CNet report. Here's a "Patriot Update" report (I find that a Tea Party source can be an interesting perspective).

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How Atheism Happens

There is a new series on the Pharyngula blog: Posts confessing "Why I Am An Atheist" gleaned from comments and responses. Some are well written, others not so much. But each is selected for showing a particular path into the light for people who have recovered from invisible friend addiction. The most recent post, Why I am an atheist – Adam, shows how an upbringing under the Ken Ham school of Young Earth Creation and science denialism eventually led him to an understanding of the willful ignorance and dishonesty that pervades that culture. Once he began to question the "facts" that he was raised with, he quickly climbed up toward rationalism and lost his religion.

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