A Freethinker's Paradise

The Atheist is the most hated group in America

According to a study done by University of Minnesota researchers:

American’s increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn’t extend to those who don’t believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota’s department of sociology.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.

Edgell also argues that today’s atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past—they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society. “It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common ‘core’ of values that make them trustworthy—and in America, that ‘core’ has historically been religious,” says Edgell. Many of the study’s respondents associated atheism with an array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant materialism and cultural elitism.

I figured this would be the case.  The religious elite really just want power.

IRS selling out

The IRS is going to sell our return data to marketers... just lovely:

The Internal Revenue Service is quietly moving to loosen the once-inviolable privacy of federal income-tax returns.

If it succeeds, accountants and other tax-return preparers for the first time would be able to sell information from individual returns -- or even entire returns -- to marketers and data brokers.

The change is in a set of proposed rules the Treasury Department and the IRS published in the Dec. 8 Federal Register, where the official notice labeled them "not a significant regulatory action."

IRS officials portray the changes as housecleaning needed to update outmoded regulations adopted before it began accepting returns electronically. The proposed rules, which would become effective 30 days after a final version is published, would require a tax preparer to obtain written consent before selling tax information.

Critics call the changes a dangerous breach in personal and financial privacy. They say the requirement for signed consent would prove meaningless for many taxpayers, especially those hurriedly reviewing stacks of documents before a filing deadline.

The problem here is that data will be sold sometimes regardless of what the taxpayer wants.  Once the data is sold, what recourse is there?

Bird Flu Transmission Problems

I found this interesting:

Two new studies help explain why human-to-human transmission of the bird flu virus has so far not happened -- and might not happen in the future.

Both reports found the H5N1 virus prefers to settle in cells deep within the lungs, rather than in the upper respiratory tract, as happens with human flu strains.

That's important because "most of the coughing and sneezing that transmits flu is going to be from the upper respiratory tract, and not way down in the lower respiratory tract," explained Dr. Arnold S. Monto, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. "So, unless you have relatively close contact, you're not going to have much [bird flu] virus get out."

The findings may also explain why bird flu has proven so lethal whenever it has managed to get a foothold in humans, the experts added.

I didn't realize bird flu cared that much.

Yet more American Atrocities uncovered

The Black Room, huh?

The Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp Nama, the secret headquarters of a shadowy military unit known as Task Force 6-26. Located at Baghdad International Airport, the camp was the first stop for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away.

Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it." According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges. "The reality is, there were no rules there," another Pentagon official said.

The story of detainee abuse in Iraq is a familiar one. But the following account of Task Force 6-26, based on documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, offers the first detailed description of how the military's most highly trained counterterrorism unit committed serious abuses.

So just how are we on the right side of this?

The thing that bothers me the most is the fact that there are those in the US that think we can do no wrong, that we are above the law and make reality.

So who's first to defend this?

Bush's View by the Public is Changing

And not for the better.

Eight people used 'Ass' as the one-word description of Bush (out of 710).  29 said 'incompetent.'  I think putting the two together would work.

Gale Norton and Jack Abramoff

From a reader:

Speaking to reporters by telephone, Norton later said her decision to leave had nothing to do with accusations that Steven Griles, her friend and the department's former No. 2, helped convicted Indian casino lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Norton also said she was not involved with any wrongdoing with Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges in January and is cooperating with prosecutors in a corruption probe that could implicate top members of the Republican Party.

The interior department oversees Indian affairs.

Yeah, because Bush's cabinet has never done anything wrong...

Gays and Lesbians are US security risks

I'm not sure how else to interpret this:

The administration rewrote a 1997 regulation that had said sexual orientation "may not be used as a basis" for denying clearances or determining whether individuals should be eligible to access classified information unless it could make them vulnerable to coercion or exploitation.

President Bush's updated language says security clearances cannot be denied "solely on the basis of the sexual orientation of the individual."

If sexual behavior is "strictly private, consensual and discreet," that could lessen security concerns, according to the regulations that came as part of an update to clearance guidelines distributed in December.

Gay rights activists said the change could open the door to added attention on sexual orientation — and discrimination.

What?  How does who we decide to have sexual relations with have a bearing on national security? 

Democrats need to stop being pansies

For Real... what are the Republicans going to do, call us names?

Senator Feingold calls for censure, and none of his colleague's have his back?  WTF is wrong with the Dems?

It's not like Bush's approval rating is 33% or anything.

Dubai and reader submission

The Dubai ports deal is going south fast, and revealing much of what makes Republicans, well, Republicans.  It is simply greed and lust for power and money.  Very simple really.  Rules are unwelcome intrusions to them.

Also, as I have little time right now to devote to going through the news and commenting on it, I'd like to invite the readers of this fine site to submit stories of their own.  I fully have the final say in what to post though.  Feel free to email me (link in upper right hand corner) with a blog post, complete with links, and I will do my best to work it into the site.  Thanks for continuing to read and participate.

Report says that Gay Prevention Programs Harm Teens

Its too bad a report on this needed to be done:

The report was released in Florida because it is home to Exodus International, the umbrella organization for Christian ministries nationwide that seek to convert gays to heterosexuals.

Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, said he had not seen the report but maintained that the ministries are successful. He said Exodus' 130 affiliated ministries use clinically trained professionals, though he added that only 30 percent have onsite professionals.

Religious leaders lead support groups, as they might in the case of an Alcoholics Anonymous groups, he said.

"The truth is that there are hundreds of thousands of men and women like me who have found that change is possible," said Chambers, who counts himself among the ex-gay.

The report maintains that, increasingly, those attending seminars on homosexuality prevention and treatment are parents who have gay or lesbian children.

Foreman called the programs frightening, saying they play into stereotypes, cautioning parents to worry if their sons are "too feminine" and often blame parents for their children's sexual orientation.

Imagine that.  Blaming parents for their children's sexual orientation.  Then the parents try to make them 'normal' again.