Life-in-outer-space version of fundamentalism

I was recently reminded that the widespread belief in supernatural beings constitutes only one version of a much bigger problem.  The problem is this: people have been turning off their skepticism in droves and allowing their fantasies to substitute for disciplined factual inquiry.   When they turn off their skepticism, they start fantasizing about a wide variety of things, none of which are supported by evidence.  They start believing in the wisdom and the benevolence of the "free market," for example.  They believe in both ethereal beings floating around the Earth and in little green men from outer space.  This reminder that non-rigorous thinking takes many forms occurred while I listened to a prominent AM radio station while I was driving home.  The host of the show, George Noory, features all kinds of un-self-critical guests:

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Senator Bernie Sanders discusses the immense magnitude of the backdoor bailout

Senator Bernie Sanders has presented some jaw-dropping facts about the financial bailout at Huffpo. He frames his article by mentioning that back in 2009, when he asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to identify the institutions that received a backdoor bailout from the Fed, he refused. Sanders refused to accept that answer. Instead, he worked hard to force an amendment into the "Wall Street Reform" bill, and we now know some of the startling things Bernanke refused to admit:

After years of stonewalling by the Fed, the American people are finally learning the incredible and jaw-dropping details of the Fed's multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street and corporate America . . .

We have learned that the $700 billion Wall Street bailout signed into law by President George W. Bush turned out to be pocket change compared to the trillions and trillions of dollars in near-zero interest loans and other financial arrangements the Federal Reserve doled out to every major financial institution in this country. Among those are Goldman Sachs, which received nearly $600 billion; Morgan Stanley, which received nearly $2 trillion; Citigroup, which received $1.8 trillion; Bear Stearns, which received nearly $1 trillion, and Merrill Lynch, which received some $1.5 trillion in short term loans from the Fed.

We also learned that the Fed's multi-trillion bailout was not limited to Wall Street and big banks, but that some of the largest corporations in this country also received a very substantial bailout. Among those are General Electric, McDonald's, Caterpillar, Harley Davidson, Toyota and Verizon.

Perhaps most surprising is the huge sum that went to bail out foreign private banks and corporations including two European megabanks -- Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse -- which were the largest beneficiaries of the Fed's purchase of mortgage-backed securities.

Sanders has written a blistering piece in which he argues that the biggest banks padded their own executive's pockets, refused to lend to small businesses, used near-zero interest loans they obtained from the Fed to buy Treasury securities and that they continued to gouge consumers through high credit card fees. He suggests that those banks that received this corporate welfare could also have used this money to work out mortgage loans. He is aghast at the conflicts of interest. I am so relieved to know that we have at least one politician who is willing to shoot straight with the American people.

Continue ReadingSenator Bernie Sanders discusses the immense magnitude of the backdoor bailout

It’s not true there is “nothing new” in the Wikileaks Afghanistan records

Writing at The Nation, Jonathan Schell tells us that it is not true that there is "nothing new" in the Wikileaks Afghanistan releases. In fact, we know that it's not true by the behaviour of the U.S. Army; it considers Julian Assange to be a " "threat to the U.S. Army." If the release of information is a big yawn, how can Assange be a "threat"? I agree with Schell that Americans should be applauding Assange for giving us some truth about the big dirty lies we've been hearing from the U.S. government when it comes to our adventures in Afghanistan:

Among the flood of Afghan war documents there happens to be a report on one more instance of a man who, finding himself threatened with participation in the evil-doing of a malignant system, opted to withdraw. In Balkh province, a little more than a year ago, the report disclosed, Afghan police officers were beating and otherwise abusing civilians for their lack of cooperation. The police commander then sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl. When a civilian protested, the report stated, "The district commander ordered his bodyguard to open fire on the AC [Afghan civilian]. The bodyguard refused, at which time the district commander shot [the bodyguard] in front of the AC." At the time these documents came out, the official reaction to them, echoed widely in the media, was that they disclosed "nothing new." But let us pause to absorb this story. A police officer, unwilling, at the risk of his own life, to be a murderer, is himself murdered by his superior. He gives his life to spare the other person, possibly a stranger. It is the highest sacrifice that can be made. The man's identity is unrecorded. His story is met with a yawn. But perhaps one day, when there is peace in Afghanistan, a monument will be erected in his honor there and schoolchildren will be taught his name. Perhaps here in the United States, when the country has found its moral bearings again, there will be recognition of the integrity and bravery of Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. For now, the war- and torture-system rolls on, and it's all found to be "nothing new."

Continue ReadingIt’s not true there is “nothing new” in the Wikileaks Afghanistan records

Make big money running a college

Bloomberg reports on the scandalous default rates at the large for-profit colleges, seen in the context of the eye-popping salaries of the executives that run the colleges:

Strayer Education Inc., a chain of for-profit colleges that receives three-quarters of its revenue from U.S. taxpayers, paid Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Silberman $41.9 million last year. That’s 26 times the compensation of the highest-paid president of a traditional university. Top executives at the 15 U.S. publicly traded for-profit colleges, led by Apollo Group Inc. and Education Management Corp., also received $2 billion during the last seven years from the proceeds of selling company stock, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show. At the same time, the industry registered the worst loan-default and four-year-college dropout rates in U.S. higher education. Since 2003, nine for-profit college insiders sold more than $45 million of stock apiece.
Here's more information about the problems with the nations large for-profit colleges, including Phoenix University.

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Camp for skeptical children

The Center for Inquiry's week-long camp for skeptical kids is underway, as described by this article in Huffpo. To be clear, this is not a God-bashing camp. Rather, it is a place where the campers "share is an interest in taking a reason-guided and evidence-based approach to all of life's questions." Imagine sitting around the camp fire reciting this passage by Carl Sagan:

[W]hen the people have lost their ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

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