Contra Mozilla

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Unions

The propaganda:

The rebuttal:
Lol... lets pretend the premise that unions being solely responsible for all of those things isn't fiction, and that those things aren't federal law... now why, oh why, would I want to like, let alone support, organizations who have done nothing in the last 80 years but embezzle money from their members, assault people, bilk taxpayers for billions of dollars with thier health-insurance schemes, support politicians that're contrary to the interests of the worker. I don't want to see unions banned, but I think every worker should be able to CHOOSE not to be part of these organizations (Right to work.) Maybe then unions would have to stand up for the worker's interests, instead of thier own, in order to retain membership.
That seems about right.

Bonus:


Come on. There's a bit of a difference between wanting to see lower taxes and smaller government with less bureaucracy and more accountability, on the one hand, and wanting to see the government cease all services of all sorts. Yes, there are probably some "libertarians" (or anarchists) who do want such a thing. The Tea Party with all its faults has never struck me as being such a group. This kind of "irony" is rather tepid next to the corporatism of the Occupy Wall Street mobs:


Anyways, there's no disconnect between saying that we need less government and using such services or products as the federal highway system or relying on EMS personnel, policemen, or even our military. Less government is not the same thing as "no government."

Friday, August 21, 2015

More Props Due--Hilton Hotels

The worldwide hotel chain Hilton has removed all porn channels from its hotels. Good for them--and good for the folks who launched the email campaign to get this started:

The worldwide Hilton hotel chain has removed all porn channels from its hotels in 85 countries after a campaign that saw top executives each getting as many as 1,000 emails a week opposing the presence of porn in the hotels.

"Partly it was the public pressure," said Pat Truman, president and CEO of the National Center of Sexual Exploitation, which organized the three-year public campaign that convinced Hilton to make the move. "But to give Hilton credit, they thanked us in the end."

Truman told LifeSiteNews that Hilton already had in place a serious policy to prevent their hotels being used for sexual exploitation. "They realized it didn't make sense to be against that while promoting pornography, which is so closely connected to it. Sex traffickers use pornography to sell prostitution. It's all connected," said Truman.

Here is one small victory for the goodguys in the culture wars.

Jindal vs Planned Parenthood

I don't think that Governor Bobby Jindal will be the Republican nominee, nor that he will likely win election for president if he is. But this has certainly made him move up a few notches in my book:
Louisiana governor and GOP presidential candidate Bobby Jindal will counter pro-Planned Parenthood protests today with a protest of his own -- in the form of a continuous video loop of the seven undercover videos showing illegal abortions and fetal harvesting by Planned Parenthood clinics.

The videos, some of which include graphic footage of abortion workers sorting through the dismembered arms, legs and other body parts of aborted babies as old as 20-weeks gestation, will show on an outdoor movie theater outside the Louisiana governor's mansion....

Jindal, who was one of the first governors to pull funding of the abortion giant, said in a statement earlier today that, "Planned Parenthood has a right to protest...but Governor Jindal’s office will ensure that anyone who shows up will have to witness first-hand the offensive actions of the organization they are supporting."
Give props where they are due. They are definitely due here.

Update: To no one's surprise, a) the protest was paltry, and b) the protesters refused to watch the videos. Reality isn't their strong suit.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Physical Science as a College Class

Here is an amalgamation of several comments I have received concerning my physical science class: "This class is so hard. I put in two whole hours doing homework this week. The math is impossible, and it feels like a physics class. This isn't like the physical science class I had in high school. I did badly on the first quiz--where did he get these questions from? They seem really hard compared to the homework. I skimmed the notes and the chapter, why couldn't I do better on the quiz? Waaaaaaaaaah!"

The only appropriate response, which I obviously can't actually post: "Welcome to college, assholes."

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

What's the Difference Between Planned Parenthood and Kermit Gosnell

What's the difference between notorious abortionist (and criminal) Kermit Gosnel and Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion committer? Well, Gosnell was caught red-handed a few years back, and ultimately lacked the resources to keep the story buried. Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, is a giant in the industry, and thus will be radically protected at every step of the way. They've now been caught--this is video 7 of something like 12 to be released by CMP--delivering an infant alive, then killing the infant to remove his brains for profit.

Shocking, yes. Surprising, no.

Remember: when it was Gosnell, the media talking point quickly became that this is why we need Planned Parenthood and others--that they run "high-class" operations which follow the laws, and all that. If they're breaking this law in such a grotesque and obvious manner, what other laws might they be breaking?

A full-fledged investigation should be following, but Obama and his cronies are too closely linked to Planned Parenthood to allow for this. The investigation should go beyond the show-trial (meant to prove no wrongdoing) given to Louis Lerner. A real investigation might just find even more damning evidence of criminal activity, and perhaps also criminal negligence. Gosnell was no better than the worst terrors of the so-called "back alley abortion," and that perversely became a defense for the other abortion providers. I think a real and honest investigation may show that the defense is base don a lie (the whole industry is, after all).

Planned Parenthood et alia delenda est.

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Update: My friend Chelsea Zimmerman makes some good points about this being just the tip of the iceberg--in more than one sense.

Update 2: Also worth a read, since I basically am on the side that says that lying is itself evil. Key passages:
I have neither said nor do I believe any of that, just as when St. Thomas Aquinas said that all lying was sinful, he did not mean the Hebrew midwives were culpable for sin or that lying was worse then killing the firstborn of Israel. I think it is obvious that all these parties are trying to honor God, and I reckon they will hear “Well done” at the Pearly Gates.

1. It is consequentialist thinking to argue “Let us do evil that good may come of it.” It does not matter to the Church that the evil is a small one and the good end a large one. Because once you grant the premise that you can do evil for a good end, you have given away the farm and granted the very premise that ultimately makes abortion thinkable in the first place. After all, as any number of people will tell you, a fetus and a zygote are just teeny tiny things too. What are they compared to a lifetime of poverty and suffering for a teenage girl who just made a mistake?

2. It is what the Church means by “scandal” to try to get somebody to agree to commit grave evil for the sake of a photo op. And, indeed, it is more serious to do this when you know that they are likely to agree to it due to habits of sin, just as it is a sin to press a drink into the hands of an alcoholic when you *know* he is an addict, while there is no sin to offer a friend a beer.

This is a pretty good summary of my stance here, too.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

TMM: Puppies and Fandom

The line from the social-justice brownshirts is that the "Sad Puppies" and "Rabid Puppies" have ruined science fiction. From my perspective, they have broadened its appeal somewhat. According to the Hugos official site, a record number of people took part in the voting this year. The number of nominations turned in were also up (and the "Puppy" slates did very well). That should be a very good thing, since this is supposed to be the highest honor awarded by science fiction fans.

I should add my own perspective here. I bought a membership for the first time, because I learned (from puppy-affiliates) that this is how one gets to vote, and also because of the benefits of receiving so many fun science fiction works for free. And while I have always been a fan on some level of science fiction--I read Timothy Zahn's Star Wars novels when they first came out (I was in elementary school at the time), and later expanded from Star Wars and Star Trek to other science fiction. I have, however, been loathe to subscribe to much in the way of SF magazines (I've contemplated If, or Analog, or Azimov's), and the only one I've read much of is the Sci-Phi Journal (a new publication, which I have largely enjoyed, and which I found thanks to John C. Wright). I tend to read mostly anthologies and a few novels, older stuff, and new materials from a small group of authors whom I've come to enjoy.

It is thanks in large part to the puppies campaigns that I have expanded considerably form this (I tend to not take Amazon's recommendations seriously, as their system is often well off the mark in trying to guess what I may want). And while this may help larger sci-phi publishers like Baen or Tor, a number of the people whom I have started reading are at smaller publishing houses (not just Vox Day/Theodore Beale's Castalia House) and, more importantly, some independent/self published writers.

It is this last group that I think the Puppies can (and have) helped the most, by helping to make fans of good sci-fi aware of these independent writers. Baen or Tor have marketing departments, and they can get the word out easily for new products; independent writers cannot do this so easily. And, I've noticed, the puppies have held a few "book bomb" days in which they encouraged a large number of people to purchase selected works from specific authors from amazon. Perhaps they could consider some re-branding of their own, e.g. by forming a "Independently-published book of the fortnight club" to do bookbombs every other week, and maybe a second one to focus on small publishers every week, year-round? Then poll their members to draft a recommended Hugo nominations list. I don't entertain any notions that this will reduce the criticisms against their group from the social justice brownshirts, but it would be still more evidence that such criticisms are unfounded.


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*Once a month seems a bit sparse, but then once a week seems a bit frequent. I figure that the puppies consist of only a handful of dedicated writers, however large their fan-base and list of friends, and asking a small group to select one book per week might become a bit taxing....

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Euphemisms

Euphemisms are often used to conceal the nature of an action--or a worldview. Being "pro-choice" sounds innocuous to anyone who doesn't understand what the "choice" in question involves. "Tolerance" and "Equality" are often euphemisms for tyranny of another sort, as truth is refused the tolerance extended to "lifestyles" and some people or worldviews become more equal than others.

There are two other euphemisms of sorts, in which one word is added to another and taken to mean the first word's opposite. "Social Justice" as applied by the social-justice brownshirts is often such a phrase. Now, once it may have meant justice as applied to the poor and the weak; this is a fine thing, and it is what is or should be defended by Christians as a part of our moral and social teachings. Then it became mercy towards the poor and downtrodden, but now without regard to justice. This is already a corruption which would act unjustly towards people who are not poor nor downtrodden--a mere mockery of mercy. Now it increasingly means showing favoritism to a privileged class, and giving fealty to a hierarchy of victimhood. Neither mercy nor justice can be recognized in the movements actions nor aims.

Which brings me to "Hate Crimes," which may not be so euphemistic and yet which still smack of intentional deception. The motivation "hate" is bad, but that fails to make an action any worse than if the motivation is greed or envy or pride or lust or wrath. As Prof. Budziszewski puts it,
A man beats up a woman because he hates women. Hate crime.  
A man beats up a woman because she was promoted and he wasn’t; because he tried to steal her purse and she resisted; because he derives pleasure from inflicting pain on others; because she was seen in public without a head scarf; because the wife of another man paid him to do it; because he was ordered to do it by the leader of his gang; or because he was rioting and got caught up in the moment. Not hate crimes.  
Each of these acts is despicable. But how is the first one worse than the other seven? Answer: It isn’t.
Hates crimes legislation exists to further the goals of the social justice brownshirts: that is, to make some groups of people more equal (and more openly and obviously privileged) than others.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Back in 1952

Back in 1952, even Planned Parenthood would openly admit to (and be repulsed by) a claim which they deny today: namely, that abortion "kills the life of a baby." They were still a generally bad organization in 1952, but since then they've basically become worse. Nor should this be surprising. As Chesterton notes, man may keep at a sort of level of good, but he cannot keep at a level of evil: that road just goes down and down. This observation is also true of organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Sometimes It Really Is That Simple

Cutting funding for places which commit abortions will reduce the number of abortion committed. It's that simple. Ross Douthat has a nice rebuttal to those who say otherwise. And his conclusion is spot-on:
But to concede that pro-lifers might be somewhat right to be troubled by abortion, to shudder along with us just a little bit at the crushing of the unborn human body, and then turn around and still demand the funding of an institution that actually does the quease-inducing killing on the grounds that what’s being funded will help stop that organization from having to crush quite so often, kill quite so prolifically – no, spare me. Spare me. Tell the allegedly “pro-life” institution you support to set down the forceps, put away the vacuum, and then we’ll talk about what kind of family planning programs deserve funding. But don’t bring your worldview’s bloody hands to me and demand my dollars to pay for soap enough to maybe wash a few flecks off.
Planned Parenthood does not exist to provide social services. These are just one more cover for their real purpose, which is to kill babies. They are certainly content to also make money, and the other services (many of which they only claim to provide) are mostly there as a mask. Sometimes the mask slips a little. Sometimes it is yanked off. Often, it does not matter, because many people are convinced that the mask is the real face, and still others (perversely!) believe that the real face is a good face which is meant to be adored.