Activism
February 14, 2012
February 05, 2012
Karen Handel, Susan G. Komen's Anti-Abortion VP, Drove Decision To Defund Planned Parenthood
WASHINGTON -- Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation's leading anti-breast-cancer charity, has insisted that its since-reversed decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood arose from a routine change in criteria for grant eligibility that had nothing to do with abortion politics.
But a Komen insider told HuffPost on Sunday that Karen Handel, Komen's staunchly anti-abortion vice president for public policy, was the main force behind the decision to defund Planned Parenthood and the attempt to make that decision look nonpolitical.
"Karen Handel was the prime instigator of this effort, and she herself personally came up with investigation criteria," the source, who requested anonymity out of concern that speaking publicly would do irreparable harm to the source's career, told HuffPost. "She said, 'If we just say it's about investigations, we can defund Planned Parenthood and no one can blame us for being political.'"
Emails between Komen leadership on the day the Planned Parenthood decision was announced, which were reviewed by HuffPost under the condition they not be published, confirm the source's description of Handel's sole "authority" in crafting and implementing the Planned Parenthood policy.
Not shocked at all.
January 17, 2012
Google Joins Online SOPA Protest
WASHINGTON -- Google will join thousands of tech activists, entrepreneurs and corporations on Wednesday in protesting the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, a controversial bill that has generated national outrage among Internet experts.
On Wednesday, more than 7,000 websites are expected to voluntarily "go dark," by blocking access to their content to protest the bill, according to organizers of SOPAStrike.com. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to bring the measure to a vote next week. Some of the biggest names on the Internet plan to participate in the blackout, including Wikipedia, Mozilla, Reddit and WordPress. On Tuesday, Google stopped short of vowing to take down its popular search engine, but said it would change its home page to show solidarity with protesters.
"Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet," said a Google spokeswoman in a written statement provided to HuffPost. "So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our U.S. home page."
While Hollywood movie studios and major record labels have lauded the bill as a robust effort to crack down on online copyright violations, Internet experts maintain that the tools proposed for the legislation would hamper efforts to improve online security and threaten the basic functioning of the Internet.
Tech companies have been raising objections to the bill since the Senate version, Protect IP, was introduced last spring. Free speech experts also argue that the measure's basic anti-piracy tool would risk seriously violating the First Amendment in allowing the government and private companies to shut down entire websites accused of piracy without a trial or even a traditional court hearing.
Students Panic Ahead Of Wikipedia Blackout: 'How Am I Going To Do Homework?'
"omfg NO wikipedia is closing tomorrow HOW AM I GOING TO DO HOMEWORK"
That question, posed by @LucieLovesYah on Twitter, is weighing heavily on students' minds this week following news that Wikipedia will black out its English-language pages for a 24-hour period beginning Wednesday morning. (@LucieLovesYah later wrote us to clarify that her tweet was sarcastic.)
The site's shutdown, which is intended as an online protest against the controversial Congressional bills known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), has students in a tizzy and altogether unsure how they can complete assignments without being able to access to the online encyclopedia.
In my day, you had to walk all the way to the library and get an actual book.
January 16, 2012
The Simpsons, "The Liberal Straw Man Song"
On a recent episode of The Simpsons the show took issue with how Fox News characterizes liberals.
If you're not familiar with the straw man fallacy see here. The basic idea of a straw man fallacy is that a position is (mis)characterized so at to make it look absurd or easily refutable, criticize this distorted mischaracterization showing its flaws, then suppose to have shown that the actual position has been defeated. It's attacking a "straw man" of the position rather than the strongest case for the rival view. In "Politically Inept with Homer Simpson," Homer gets a job as a pundit on a conservative infotainment network. The network execs readily acknowledge that they present a straw man of the liberal position by suggesting it's based on envy of the rich and turning kids into homosexuals. Of course, there are reasonable, principled arguments for the liberal positions on taxation and tolerance of homosexuality or even same-sex marriage that have nothing to do with envy or making kids gay.
January 15, 2012
Colbert Super Pac's Romney Attack Ad
November 19, 2011
A Legitimate Use of Police Power?
November 15, 2011
NYPD Clears Zuccotti Park, Other Cities Clear Camps Too
Some related readings.
August 07, 2011
Secular Ethics Lead to Nazism?
Conservative crossbench MP Fred Nile has introduced his private member's bill to abolish school ethics classes, arguing the course is based on a philosophy linked to Nazism and communism.
The Christian Democratic Party MP told the upper house his bill would abolish ethics classes in public schools at the end of this school year, saying that with just 2700 students enrolled, the program had been a failure.
Ethics classes were introduced by the former Labor government as an alternative for children who did not want to attend traditional scripture classes.
Advertisement: Story continues belowThe Reverend Nile provoked anger among Greens and Labor MPs when he said the "dangerous" secular humanist philosophy taught in the ethics course had led to the worst atrocities committed during World War II.
"It's relative ethics, which is the basis of secular humanism and I believe ... this is the philosophy we saw during World War II with the Nazis and with the communists," Mr Nile told the Legislative Council today.
"Situation ethics, as I see it, was followed by other regimes such as the Nazis and communists.
"Situation ethics means nothing is right and nothing is wrong ... Therefore, you can kill human beings without any embarrassment and any reservations.
"It's a very dangerous philosophy."
So, either religious ethics or fascism? Great reasonining there along with some shockingly ignorant ideas about Nazi ideology. That guy should be required to take the course and produce a well-reasoned argument to support his views on ethics or be banned.
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