Day: June 20, 2002

Once Again American Atheists Hit the Important Stuff

American Atheists is sort of the nonbeliever counterpart to the Southern Baptist Convention — a bunch of fruitcakes who have managed to cement a number of stereotypes about atheists through their actions.

This time around they’re angry that proposals for a 9/11 memorial might include a “cross.” Okay, it’s not really a cross. It’s just a couple of steel beams that happened by chance to be joined in a cross-like configuration. But the born again rescue worker who found it thought it was God speaking to him (what? God couldn’t have found a better way to make a cross than to bring down two of the world’s biggest buildings? Please).

Personally I couldn’t care either way if they put this “cross” up at a 9/11 memorial, but for the American Atheists, even a whiff of religion in the public sphere is the second coming of the Inquisition.

These are the same idiots who want the inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetary removed because it reads, “Here lies in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.”

And I still chuckle over the AA’s opposition to a New Jersey law that would have required school children to recite daily two of the most beautiful sentences ever written in English,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these, Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

Certainly a much better use of one’s time to memorize that than to obssess about Star Jones. Sheesh.

Librarian of Congress to Webcasters: Screw You!

Webcasters are already going off the air after the Librarian of Congress published the final fee structure for webcasting.

The main effect of the rates are that many people who have set up small Internet broadcasts that reach at most hundreds of people will have to pay the same sort of royalty rates that major radio stations that reach hundreds of thousands of people do.

Oh, and the rates are retroactive back to October 1998. A lot of people running small webcasting streams in their spare time suddenly own RIAA a big chunk of money.

The Problem with Islam and Jerry Fallwell

The Rev. Jerry Falwell’s in the news again for supporting a Southern Baptist preacher who attacked Islam’s founder for being a “demon-possessed pedophile.” Rev. Jerry Vines, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, blamed religious pluralism in the United States for our nation’s many problems (what problems?) Vines said,

They would have us believe that Islam is just as good as Christianity. Christianity was founded by the virgin-born son of God, Jesus Christ. Islam was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives, the last one of which was a 9-year-old girl.

. . .

And I will tell you Allah is not Jehovah, either. Jehovah’s not going to turn you into a terrorist.

And it’s not just Islam that Southern Baptist presidents have problems with. In 1987, former Southern Baptist president Bailey Smith told an audience that, “God almighty doesnÂ’t hear the prayer of a Jew.”

The real problem with Fallwell, Vines, et al is that they agree with the single worst aspect of Islam in completely rejecting secularism and a strict separation between church and state.

Source:

Anti-Muslim Remarks Stir Tempest Leading Evangelicals Back Baptist Preacher. Alan Cooperman, The Washington Post, June 20, 2002.

Newsflash: Fast Food Unhealthy! (Who Knew?)

My hometown paper, the Kalamazoo Gazette, had a small front space on the front page to fill so they rewrote an Associated Press story which in turn simply rewrote a press release from an advocacy group with an astonishing finding — it turns out that fast food isn’t good for you.

Now I know most of you think that when you order a Big Mac, a Supersized Fry and Coke that this is the ideal meal, but the folks at the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity somehow learned that all of those supersized fast food value meals are in fact just loaded with excessive calories, fat and salt.

Moreover, those dastardly McDonald’s and Burger King chains are actually making it cheaper to get supersized meals! Apparently they missed the memo explaining that, for the good of the nation, food should be priced as expensively as possible to save us from our own bad habits.

I know I’m changing my habits — no more McDonald’s and Burger King. Besides, the Dairy Queen is closer.

The British Labor Party and Animal Rights Extremism

British Prime Minister Tony Blair was given high marks in many quarters for his recent remarks in support of animal research and against violent animal rights extremism. But an editorial in the Daily Telegraph rightly pointed out that for all of its sudden concern over pharmaceutical companies fleeing the country, the Labor Party has no one to blame but itself for encouraging animal rights extremism.

The Telegraph wrote,

But who encouraged the political atmosphere in which “unlawful protests” by animal activists have recently thrived? The Government . . . itself. The Government is pursuing its hunting ban on the basis of spurious claims about cruelty that are not supported by the report that the Government itself commissioned. Only recently it has started work on a “Bill of Rights for animals”. It is a huge step and a major error. Ultimately it may lead to the point where we — pet owners, scientists and fisherman alike — will have to prove that we have treated animals well, presumed guilty until proved innocent. . . .

Labour has financial reasons for having pursued this line. The political Animal Lobby gave the party “an Ecclestone” (pounds 1 million) in 1996 and may have given a further sum more recently that has not yet had to be declared. The Government’s own attitude has sustained “unlawful demonstrations”. . . .

Mr. Blair needs to show leadership and moral consistency about the treatment of animals. This is not an issue in which, to use the Least of New Labour of metaphors, he can run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.

Frankly, despite some recent promising public relations turns, it is not clear at all that the Labor government has any sort of consistent policy in mind to address animal rights extremism. Hearing Blair defend science and seeing Brian Cass and others in the pharmaceutical industry recognized was nice, but so far Blair doesn’t seem to have much in the way of concrete proposals to make his vision of science in the UK a reality.

Source:

Labour dogged by hypocrisy. The Daily Telegraph, May 24, 2002.