Associated Press:

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it would accept, not appeal, a federal judge’s order that lifts Bush administration restrictions limiting over-the-counter sales of “Plan B” to women 18 and older. U.S. District Judge Edward Korman ruled last month in a lawsuit filed in New York that President George W. Bush’s appointees let politics, not science, drive their decision to restrict over-the-counter access.

Sounds good at first blush, but when you realize that the FDA’s own medical reviewers had initially recommended that the contraceptive be made available without any age restrictions, you see that it’s a half-measure.

Critics of the contraceptive say Plan B is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it can prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus. Recent research suggests that’s possible but not likely.

So the fuck what! Why would that even matter? I mean, in those terms, “God” would have to be greatest abortionist ever–EVER.  In humans, between a quarter and a third of fertilized eggs fail to properly implant in the wall of the uterus–and that’s with no interference or intervention of any kind. Anyone who believes that their “perfect” god created a “perfect” human reproductive system, is sadly mistaken and frankly, either ignorant or delusional.

Get over it already! I mean, I know to your way of thinking sex is a bad thing because Jesus never got laid and all, but remember, hormones yell louder than parents. And remember also that it is the certainty, not the severity, of adverse consequences that deters behavior.  Get that?  Your daughter, as well as mine, has or will have too many friends and acquaintances that are having sex and not getting pregnant for this remote possibility to be much of a deterrent. There’s just too many “ifs”.  If she has sex and if it’s unprotected sex or if she only “thinks” it’s not unprotected sex and if she gets pregnant and if she’s under 18 and if she doesn’t have any friends or friends with older siblings who are over 18 and willing to purchase the Plan B pill for her, and if she winds up having to tell her parents, and if her parents wind up making her have the kid, then and in that event yada, yada, yada.

And it’s always the same arguments from these people!  Kids are so awful and horrible that they will take any chance just to fuck up the lives of their parents, right? Well fuck that. To paraphrase Bengt Washburn, saying this pill will make teenagers have sex is like saying the headlights on my car make the sun go down. Fucking get real.

Yeah, well, John Stewart nails him:

Yeah! That’s Bobby Jindal, Louisiana governor, rising star of the Republican party, and a leading anti-stimulus voice. His state has been offered $3.8 billion dollars in federal aid, but Jindal has said, “No!” He’s only agreed to take a little over $3.7 billion.

And Sarah Palin cancelled the “bridge to nowhere” too. What a fucking unabashed bullshit artist.

And yet, according to George F. Will, many scientists were convinced in the 1970s that global cooling was a significant threat to the planet. And if those scientists were so wrong before, why should we trust them when they say that global warming is a threat now?

There’s just one little problem with this story, which reappears every so often in conservative discourse on the environment. Specifically, it’s a crock of shit.

Stein told the Burlington Free Press that he was not “anti-science” as some critics have labeled him.

Yeah, and Archie Bunker never saw himself as a bigot, either.

“I am far more pro-science than the Darwinists,” Stein wrote in an e-mail to the newspaper. “I want all scientific inquiry to happen not just what the ruling clique calls science.”

So what he’s saying is that science, which is the study of the natural world, should also study the supernatural. Yeah, great idea… puts me in mind of this incredibly apt Sidney Harris cartoon.

Ben Stein is no dummy, and while his dogged (or should I say dogmatic?) adherence to this ridiculous assertion that ruling-class scientists are somehow suppressing some ‘higher truth’ is, at first blush, so laughable as to not even warrant reply, the fact of the matter is that there are plenty of people out there willing to simply take his word for it. He’s able to perpetuate this nonsense because so many Americans don’t really understand what science is and isn’t, and in the face of utter ignorance, Ben Stein doesn’t sound that crazy. I’m glad he’s not the only one doing the talking.

Mississippi State Representative Gary Chism (rhymes with jism) introduced the latest idiotic textbook labeling bill, which would require the State Board of Education to place stickers with the following disclaimers on every textbook that includes material on evolution:

The word ‘theory’ has many meanings, including: systematically organized knowledge; abstract reasoning; a speculative idea or plan; or a systematic statement of principles. Scientific theories are based on both observations of the natural world and assumptions about the natural world. They are always subject to change in view of new and confirmed observations.

This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things. No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life’s origins should be considered a theory.

Evolution refers to the unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced living things. There are many topics with unanswered questions about the origin of life which are not mentioned in your textbook, including: the sudden appearance of the major groups of animals in the fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion); the lack of new major groups of other living things appearing in the fossil record; the lack of transitional forms of major groups of plants and animals in the fossil record; and the complete and complex set of instructions for building a living body possessed by all living things.

Study hard and keep an open mind.

And what’s the message? “Don’t believe science, kids.”

You know, I love how we always hear about Evolution being a “controversial theory” and how “some scientists” don’t accept it, etc.  Get this: there are millions of “scientists” on this planet whose professional discipline is one that is intimately entwined with Evolution*–seven of them** have a problem with the fundamental principles of Evolution–you do the math…

[via Pharyngula]

nkb

* What I mean by this is that “scientist” is a fairly loosely-defined term (e.g., “Environmental Science”, “Computer Science”, etc.). Obviously, we should probably give more weight to the pronouncements on Evolution made by a Biologist, than a Climatologist.
** Seven. Not seven percent, not seven thousand, seven.

The linked story resides at Bloomberg, Condoms Trump Abstinence in Obama Global AIDS Policy:

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — President-elect Barack Obama will reverse U.S. family-planning and AIDS-prevention strategies that have long linked global funding to anti-abortion and abstinence education, a public-health adviser said.

Public-health policies of President George W. Bush’s $45- billion PEPFAR program have brought AIDS drugs to almost 3 million people in poor countries such as Rwanda and Uganda, more than under any other president. Still, requirements that health workers emphasize abstinence from sex and monogamy over condom use have set back sexually transmitted disease prevention and family planning globally, said Susan F. Wood, co-chairman of Obama’s advisory committee for women’s health.

Wood said that, in recent years, the U.S. government has influenced and “tightly vetted” international organizations to reflect its own policies.

Obama will bring “back a sense of balance and perspective and the use of good science and good medicine in these positions, and not just this narrow, political ideology,” she said.

It’s been a long time, but it is very refreshing to hear about a U.S. President(-Elect) choosing “good science and good medicine” over mere belief. And, despite the political claims to the contrary made in the article by the National Abstinence Education Association, the evidence is compelling: Abstinence Programs Don’t Work.
As for the religious dogma regarding condoms, and to varying degrees other forms of birth control, I think comedian Bengt Washburn said it best:    

Saying condoms make teenagers have sex is like saying the headlights on my car make the sun go down.

Over the last week, Palin’s relationship with the McCain campaign has been the focus of intense scrutiny. In various reporting, she has been described as “rogue”; called a “whack job”; accused of alienating everyone on the McCain campaign staff and described as distant even from her family.

Palin insisted none of it is true, and she challenged the unnamed sources to come forward and say it to her face.

“I have never met any of those who I have heard to have written something or say something negative,” Palin said. “I would love to meet these people, have a conversation instead of them superficially making a statement like that. It would be nice if they would take it a step further and at least interview me.”

At least interview me?  How?

One week ago, Joe Wurzelbacher was just another working man living in a modest ranch house in Toledo, Ohio, thinking about how to expand his plumbing business. But when he stopped Senator Barack Obama during a visit to his block this weekend to ask about his taxes, he set himself on a path to being the newest media celebrity — and, like other celebrities, found himself under scrutiny.

My take on the debate: who cares? I only watched so that I’d have the proper context to be able to fully understand all the humorous references in this weekend’s SNL opening sketch! I don’t think Obama did a great job by any measure^*, but McCain just really had me scratching my head. Here’s a few examples:

• So you’re answer to the question about “negative campaigning” is that Obama didn’t agree to have ten or so “town hall” type debates with you? What? You sound like my kids! “Well, he started it!” Not very “presidential” to be seen passing the buck, eh?
• It’s one thing to make unsubstantiated allegations based on nothing more than innuendo once or twice or a hundred times, but at this late stage to still be making clearly false statements like McCain made about Obama ‘launching his political career’ in Bill Ayers’ living room is just, well, where I come from it’s called “lying” and being a “sore loser”. This whole Ayers-Acorn bit just made McCain sound like a “conspiracy theorist”. What happened to the “straight talk”?
• Trying to paint your opponent as wanting bigger government and wanting to expand “socialist” programs at the same time you’re advocating the federal government getting into the mortgage business probably isn’t the most effective tactic. I for one hate to see what’s happening in the now-eclipsed “mortgage crisis”, and agree that something probably needs to be done, but it would be an understatement to say that I’m less than thrilled at the prospect of the federal government becoming the new “homeowner’s association”.
• Now, let me get this straight: as president, Obama would take a completely “ideological” approach to nominating Supreme Court Justices, while you simply would only nominate someone who shares your system of beliefs. Uh, ok, yeah, TUH-MAY-TOE, TUH-MAAHH-TOE. Nice try!
• When did “taking on members of your own party” become a litmus test for “quality public servant”? What if the members of your own party are right, is it still automatically a good thing to be all mavericky?
• And lastly, Senator McCain, surely someone involved with your campaign has explained to you just what the fuck a planetarium is, no? Even if you still think educating kids is a boondoggle (you ‘ole maverick!), surely someone has explained to you the difference between an “overhead projector” and “a venerable piece of precision fabricated equipment” and marvel of engineering? Haven’t they? All they have to do is a quick search on the Interthingy…

Don’t get me wrong folks. I wouldn’t classify either of these candidates as “among the best and brightest” (well, Obama is bright, after all, he chooses his words carefully, and he’s eloquent — and somehow both of these sound like bad things when McCain says it), but fuck me — one of them is going to be the next President!

In my humble opinion, it needs to be Obama. He may be eloquent and all (I still don’t understand how that’s a bad thing), but I’m really put-off by McCain’s increasingly frequent bucketed trips to the well of half-truths, misstatement and innuendo, but maybe that’s just me… (Damn! Took my best shot at eloquence and it came out trite!)

So anyway, I just inadvertently came across a prime example of Christian propaganda:

The doctrine of the Trinity — that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are each equally and eternally the one true God — is admittedly difficult to comprehend, and yet is the very foundation of Christian truth. Although skeptics may ridicule it as a mathematical impossibility, it is nevertheless a basic doctrine of Scripture as well as profoundly realistic in both universal experience and in the scientific understanding of the cosmos.

Uhhhhh, say what? Ok. Now, I’m confused. The holy trinity is “realistic … in the scientific understanding of the cosmos”??? Really??? Oh wait, I see, this is another “Christian truth”.  Well, that’s the problem — I’ve always tried to stick to the “regular” kind.

Now, this whole deal puts me in mind of one of George Carlin’s observations — ostensibly an observation on driving, but in reality an observation on human nature:

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anybody driving faster is a maniac?

See where I’m going? I don’t know Bill Ayers “from Adam” as they say, but I can read, and when I read the undisputed history of the Weather Underground, I get pissed and disgusted. And, if there were evidence of an actual puppet-master relationship between Obama and Ayers — or even evidence of a close relationship between the two — I’d be jumping on the bandwagon, too.

But the fact of the matter is there’s just no clear, credible evidence (or even “strongly suggestive” evidence, for that matter) of any such thing. I mean, if there were, that evidence would be the only thing you were hearing about. It’d be all over the place, and Sean Hannity wouldn’t have to be interviewing unheard of “Internet journalists” who themselves seem far more like crackpots that even I do! No one would be speaking about the suggestive nature of anything or dealing in innuendo (anyone else seeing the red flags waving around?).

The FoxNews.com “Election HQ” website itself carried a story just this week stating that Obama and Ayers don’t know each other well, and citing the well-known facts that they served on a charity board together and Ayers hosted a meet-the-candidate event over a decade ago.

Also at FoxNews.com:

Palin toned down her description of the Obama-Ayers relationship after her weekend remarks were criticized as exaggerated

In her earlier attacks, Palin had said that Obama “pals around with terrorists.”

Well, if “pals around” is being “criticized” to the extent that the Republican Vice Presidential Nominee sees fit to “tone down” her remarks (and she’s obviously taking the criticism seriously), then how substantial a relationship could we possibly be talking about?

I guess as a skeptic, I just have the nasty habit of evaluating claims based on the evidence, rather than how scared (or happy) I’d be “if it’s true.” Take a look around and you’ll find plenty of other crackpots who have all the “evidence” in the world that NASA never landed on the moon, too.

For what it’s worth, this seems to be a fairly objective look at the issue(s).

Well, shock of shocks — it turns out McCain’s characterization of this was all wrong. In fact, I would call it a lie. He knows it wasn’t for an overhead projector, a piece of classroom equipment that costs a couple of hundred dollars. That money was for Adler’s Zeiss Mark VI star projector: a venerable piece of precision fabricated equipment that projects the stars, constellations, and other objects inside the planetarium dome.

Go read the rest of the article — now.

And let’s all join John McCain in his quest to finally end the financially wasteful education of children. [/sarchasm]