clearing off the desktop, as per…
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The Strong Anthropic Principle makes a bit of a comeback…
Many people would like us to use these coincidences as evidence of the work of God. The idea that the universe was designed to accommodate mankind appears in theologies and mythologies dating from thousands of years ago. In Western culture the Old Testament contains the idea of providential design, but the traditional Christian viewpoint was also greatly influenced by Aristotle, who believed “in an intelligent natural world that functions according to some deliberate design.”
That is not the answer of modern science. As recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.
It’s not necessary, but it makes people feel good about things, which it turns out is often necessary. God was a necessary invention for larger society to function, and indeed, every large culture has a centralized concept of how the world came to be. Sure, most range from horribly wrong to ludicrous, and it takes generations to modify them, and they are used constantly to restrict freedoms of minorities, but hey…at least folks feel good about doing it.
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Republicans stand against their own ideology, when Obama proposes it.
President Obama is in the process of rolling out a job creation package comprised overwhelmingly of the sorts of tax cuts Republicans normally love, paired with a modest plan to create a government-run infrastructure investment bank to help fund transportation projects across the country. But judging from the GOP response, you’d think the specifics of the proposal were reversed: big on spending, small on tax cuts. In other words, so comfortable have Republicans become with opposing Democratic proposals, that they’re gearing up for a fight against the policies their most powerful supporters love.
“As the American people, facing near double-digit unemployment, mark Labor Day by asking, where are the jobs, the White House has chosen to double-down on more of the same failed ‘stimulus’ spending,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said in a Monday statement.
The Republicans want to do everything possible to do nothing for the economy until after the election. The worse it does, the better they do. It’s been this way for the past year, which explains the obstructionism. They also want to call everything Obama does a “stimulus” or a “bailout”. Both these words have negative popular connotations, so they apply them to everything (just like Luntz told them to).
The hypocrisy level here is huge, as anybody who knows that the “stimulus” was composed to a great degree (I think around 40% or so) of tax cuts. So those “tax cuts” failed to stimulate the economy (goes the decrypted rhetoric). Hence it should surprise few that their new solution to the economy is…wait for it…tax cuts (and of course de-regulation of Wall Street and Big Insurance). And not just any tax cuts, tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Even funnier, they are going to decry the stimulus (made largely of tax cuts) and the bailouts (passed largely under the last President) while calling for more tax cuts and braying abou the deficit that they rang up!
One would think this level of hypocrisy would dampen their supporters spirits. One would be wrong.
The rally theme of “Remember in November” is especially dear to the heart of Ann Crews, another of the Rome contingent.
An avowed conservative, Crews said she’s looking forward to the fellowship and the opportunity to motivate others to vote.
“The last time we Republicans were in control of Congress, oh my gosh, what a mess we made. But I’d like to see us get another opportunity,” she said. “We need what the Tea Party stands for — more accountability, more responsibility — and we’re going up there to be counted.”
“Book burning is antithetical to American ideals,” she wrote. “People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation — much like building a mosque at Ground Zero.”
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The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted between Dec 2008 and March 2009, during which school children were given 1200 International Units per day and cases of influenza A were counted.
During the trial, 10.8 percent of children who took vitamin d supplements got infected with influenza A compared to 18.6 percent among the children who did not get vitamin D. The risk of influenza A was reduced by 42 percent.
When I read these reports about Vitamin D (which have been coming up a lot recently as we being to understand its integral part in our biology) I can’t hep thinking about that sickly kid from when I was growing up. That kid who was always ill, who his mom kept inside to keep away the germs, and I can’t help but think that it is *precisely* that activity (keeping them inside, out of the life-giving Vitamin D-producing sun) which is at the root of their constant health problems.
We’re solar people, don’t ever forget it.
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And finally, the asshat and the coverage of the asshat has led to death.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Numerous protests broke out in Afghanistan on Friday and two of them turned violent in response to plans by a Florida pastor to burn copies of the Koran, even after the pastor announced he had suspended those plans.
In western Afghanistan, one civilian was killed and three were wounded by gunshots at a protest outside a NATO base in Bala Buluk in Farah Province, according to a hospital official there.
Sorry, what was that point I made about “god” again?
Robot Pirate Ninja 