How to tell our enemies how we plan to track them down and kill them

I keep hearing more details about how the U.S. government pulled off the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. These tactics and strategies are all being leaked by U.S. government employees, of course, because no one else was in a position to leak this valuable and sensitive technical information to the press. Government officials are energetically crowing about how to trace a wanted figure, details on how to do electronic surveillance, how to plan a surgical attack and how to carry it out, down to minute details. Everything a enemy might want to know. It seems to me that this is the type of information that should be kept secret, lest some other enemy of the U.S. might need to be tracked down in the future. Now compare to the details leading up to Osama Bin Laden's death to the types of information being leaked by Wikileaks, most of which falls into the categories of exposing lies, revealing torture, revealing civilian deaths, and revealing hypocrisy on behalf of U.S. officials. I suppose that it matters more who is leaking the secrets than what kind of secret is being leaked.

Continue ReadingHow to tell our enemies how we plan to track them down and kill them

On the death of enemies

[update] The quote I published originally at this post was a misquote. Here's what I should have posted:

Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
– Martin Luther King, Jr. This bona fide quote is from Dr. King's Strength to Love , 1963 [Here's the misquote I originally published: "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." - I picked it up at another site, and it was incorrect.]

Continue ReadingOn the death of enemies

Climate Denial Meltdown

As we seem to be discussing conspiracy theories here lately, let's take a look at Climate-gate, the oft repeated Fox News banner of climate change denialism. This video is a good and detailed look at not only the emergence and initial rallying cry of Climate-gate, but also how a thoroughly disproved lie emerges again later as a new rallying cry. It is a pity that this video does not even bother to go into the criminal activity used to gather the misleading information. The forces of anti-reason are tireless, and this is just one of many subjects in which it manifests.

Continue ReadingClimate Denial Meltdown

The history of church-state separation in twenty minutes

Adam Lee of Daylight Atheism recently gave a short talk on the topic of church-state separation at Columbia University. As Adam explains, separation benefits all religious sects, protecting each of them from all other sects. Nonetheless, there is a long history of Americans religions attempting to circumvent the separation clause. One of the main problems has been that members of many religions, including today's religious right, simply cannot comprehend or accept the possibility that government could be religiously neutral.  They are driven along by this idea: "If you are not their ally, you must be their enemy." This is an excellent two-part talk on a critically important topic, and you can view both parts of the talk here. Here is Part I:

Columbia Speech from Adam Lee on Vimeo.

Also, notice that Adam (AKA Ebonmuse) is now out of the closet as an atheist.  There's an important reason for that move, one that is explained in this Daylight Atheism post about FFRF's "Virtual Billboard Campaign."  I'm totally in favor of having non-theists of all stripes (including atheists, new atheists, agnostics and ignostics) spread the word that they are decent, law-abiding, tax-paying moral members of society despite the fact that many of them do not attend church. They need to be heard because they are all-too-often unfairly disparaged, especially by conservative believers, and because non-religious people comprise one out of six Americans. Here's how Adam further explains the reason for the Campaign:

As simple as it is, this may be one of the most effective things we can do to improve our public image and get our message out. The religious right has worked hard to spread poisonous stereotypes about who we are, what we stand for, even what we look like. By associating atheism with a friendly, smiling face that could be your friend or your neighbor, we go a long way toward counteracting those prejudices in the public's conception and making people more likely to listen to what we have to say.

Continue ReadingThe history of church-state separation in twenty minutes