Category Archives: In Brief

nature.com: Conservatives Into Liberals?

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In “Magic trick transforms conservatives into liberals,” Brian Owens in Nature magazine reviews a diabolical Swedish study that suggests many of us aren’t as politically hidebound as our friends in the opposite political party are so apt to charge. The study showed survey respondents could be tricked into changing conservative positions into liberal ones, and vice-versa.

On the other hand, what I also get out of this is, if we can be that manipulable,  many of us might not always have the foggiest why we hold the political beliefs we do, despite what we may think.

 

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Why Undecided Youth Should Vote Democratic in 2012

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Maybe you’re thinking neither political party has a handle on the economy. Maybe you’re mad at Team Obama because he couldn’t reach out across a bipartisan aisle like he thought he could. Maybe you’re thinking you won’t even vote in the 2012 election.

Well, the GOP’s “social conservative” plank should be the deal breaker for you.

If you’re from a poor or middle income family, or you’re an ethnic or cultural minority, or a woman, or gay, you’re a target. If your civil rights are eroded or actually taken away by legislative fiat, you lose full civil equality. You lose your standing as a fully equal citizen to debate and argue the national issues, including both the economy, and your own right to have a fully enfranchised say in it.

No matter who you are, or what your background and upbringing was, maybe you just think it’s time we work together to put the “all” back in “all men are created equal.”

“Social conservatism” is, among other things, a cancerous code word for anti-gay, anti-women, anti-minority, anti-Islam and even anti-Semite.

Most Republicans don’t fit that description, and many are as nice as any other folks you’d hope to meet. Right now, though, if you vote Republican, you’re stuck with the “social conservatism” baggage a cult minority has imposed on the much bigger GOP.

As Chris Rock said, “If you vote against Obama because he can’t get anything done, it’s kind of like saying ‘This guy can’t cure cancer. I’m gonna vote for cancer.”

You can register for any political party you want, but vote for Obama so we can get on with the business of fixing our country.

_____

If you liked this message, please feel free to email it to your friends, or post it to Facebook or other social media. Alex Forbes Sept 2012.

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Ship’s Clock!

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I’m an Army vet, but I grew up with the sound of a big Chelsea ship’s clock in an elegant solid copper casting. I learned the hour and half-hour bells. Navy folks know these in their sleep. I can’t afford a real Chelsea, but I can afford the software, ’cause it’s free. This isn’t your typical tinny Sears “chime,” but an authentic ship’s bell sound. You can set it to “sleep” silently overnight. I’ve had a PC version for years, but found it for Mac on SourceForge, a developer’s site I trust. Mac or PC: http://sourceforge.net/projects/shipsclock/

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On Honoring the Opinion of Others

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It is a fine thing to honor the opinion of friends with whom we disagree, and it is just and proper to recognize and defend the right of others of any walk of life to disagree with us.

But, no one has a moral right to call for the oppression or destruction of others whose greatest offense may be to try to live their own lives in peace. Expressing opinion must always be a protected right, but advocacy for the legal disenfranchisement of others is never an opinion — it is a call to force in disguise.

When we encounter such attacks on the edifice of rights, either individually or through the vote, it is always wrong to remain silent. It’s moral and spiritual treason to acquiesce to prejudice and oppression by pretending it to be mere ‘opinion.’

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More on Science Denial

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My first comment post on the Huffington editorial From a Boy Who Loved NASA: How 49 Heroes Lost the Right Stuff and Sullied Their Names by Shawn Otto:

Thanks, Shawn Otto, for an exceptionally well written, interesting and well documented article. I know many cases where science denial is politically motivated, but many more where folks who are not fundamentally interested in science developments, and don’t follow science news, are genuinely confused about who to believe. For former NASA astronauts to pander to the political spin is absolutely shameful. We can debate how fast the ice sheets are melting, how high the oceans will rise, what species will be at risk first, how and where human food and water resources will be impacted, and what parts of the world may become uninhabitable first, but not the direction and implication of those trends. To an unknown extent, our planet is self-healing, but to gamble on inexhaustibility is suicidal.”

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On Science Denial

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My comment on an editorial about the astronauts who came out against climate change:

huffingtonpost entry
From a Boy Who Loved NASA: How 49 Heroes Lost the Right Stuff and Sullied Their Names
Commented Apr 13, 2012 at 13:42:54 in Green

Even more pointedly, Earth (the planet) isn’t registered to vote, doesn’t care, isn’t listening to the debate, and just keeps doing her own thing based on chemical and thermodynamic equilibriums we “choose” to ignore.”

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“Repairing the Social Safety Net”

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The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki, in “Call That A Budget?” commenting on the part of Paul Ryan’s draconian Tea Party budget proposal ingenuously called “Repairing the Social Safety Net” :

But when Ryan explains that he’s doing things like cutting Medicaid in order to help “the less fortunate get back on their feet” one hears echoes of Judge Smails, in “Caddyshack,” explaining that he sentenced young criminals to death because “I felt I owed it to them.”

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2012/04/09/120409ta_talk_surowiecki#ixzz1quFHGwGJ

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Pink Slime

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No matter how medically safe “pink slime” may be, it’s disgusting. The consumer, not the meat processor plant, must be the final judge of what’s food and what’s chemically processed byproduct. The fact that “pink slime” has been quietly pushed to market without prominent WARNING! notices is even more disgusting.

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Affordable Health Care

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It’s time to rethink the whole individual mandate business. I still think conservative objections based on a distinction between taxation and the individual mandate were self-serving, convenient and artificial. Still, the codeword “individual mandate” set off alarm bells for me from the very beginning. The Supreme Court, playing Solomon splitting the baby, will be the last straw in a series of crippling setbacks for Affordable Health Care.

The Administration’s original proposal at least seemed comprehensible and containable. Compromise, lobbying and bill riders spawned a three-headed monster, mostly favoring the health care lobby at the expense of the individual citizen. It’s time to formally dump what’s left of “Obamacare” and start over.

Of single-payer health care (medical care funded from a single insurance pool), Forbes Magazine said,”The constitutionality of single payer is basically uncontroversial (Medicare is single payer health care) and the politics of it would look a lot more appealing to moderates than they did before.”

Health care costs have hit 20% of US GDP and for this we’re getting third-world care. Let the debate for a serious single-payer begin.

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