Policy and Politics
tfk | November 17, 2008Martin Cothran jokes:
Are the issues of same-sex marriage and interracial marriage the same kind of issue? Well, we could be smart alecky and point out that one has issue and the other doesn't, but we won't settle for that.
This is an example of a joke that isn't a joke; joking-but-for-real, if you will. He's waving off a stupid comment as a joke, but the bad joke reveals something mildly significant, and it's worth digging into.
The idea that gays shouldn't be allowed to marry because they can't have children is a hoary argument, and many people seem to find it compelling. Indeed, if we're…
tfk | November 17, 2008I know I said that "all you need to know about [Martin] Cothran" is that he managed to misidentify both my employer and my profession and then repeat those easily corrected errors many times.
But it turns out there's more to Cothran. Sure, he's bigoted, has an odd fascination with the word "faggot," and writes for both the Disco. Inst. and the Kentucky affiliate of Focus on the Family. But he also teaches logic at a private school in Kentucky.
To really get to know him, then, we need to see how he employs logic in his arguments against marriage equality.
In one of several febrile posts…
tfk | November 14, 2008Last October, there was a brief period when smart people wondered whether wingnuttery had crashed and burned. Within 7 minutes, it was determined that wingnuttery had not reached a peak, and was likely to continue expanding indefinitely in its inanity.
And yet, post-election, I feel a great lack of wingnuttery to mock. This explains why I've written so many blog posts documenting the bigotry (and, since we're on a thesaurus kick: fanaticism, fiendishness, zealotry, mania, segregationism, puritanism, and narrow-mindedness) of Martin Cothran. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel, spending…
tfk | November 13, 2008As part of our multi-part colloquy regarding whether Martin Cothran is, in fact, a gigantic bigot for wanting to take away marriages from 18,000 gay people married in California, the Disco. Inst. blogger wonders:
Isn't the whole debate about whether they are marriages in the first place?
No.
As they say:
PROP 8: ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME–SEX COUPLES TO MARRY.
But really, all you need to know about Cothran comes from this sentence, which is wrong in about a brazillion ways:
Josh Rosenau, who teaches at the ever more ludicrous National Association for Science Education (NASE) and…
First, I am…
tfk | November 12, 2008Martin Cothran, bigoted Disco. Inst. blogger and staffer with the Kentucky affiliate of Focus on the Family, is very worried. Having pitched a hissyfit when his bigotry was called bigotry, he is now worried about What McCarthy would do if he were gay. He does this without any jokes at all about Roy Cohn:
That sound you hear may be goosestepping from the Tolerance Police. Now someone has posted a "blacklist" of individuals and businesses that contributed to the effort to pass Proposition 8. If a conservative did this, they would be skewered.
That silence you hear is the media completely…
tfk | November 11, 2008Ronald M. Green writes in the Washington Post:
Few issues are likely to generate more emotional opposition than federal funding of stem cell research. Handled wrongly, it could energize conservative opponents and derail Barack Obama's presidency. There is no question that we must move ahead, but caution is key.
Actually:
Time Poll conducted by Abt SRBI. June 18-25, 2008. N=805 likely voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.
"There is a type of medical research that involves using special cells, called embryonic stem cells, that might be used in the future to treat or cure many diseases, such as Alzheimer'…
tfk | November 11, 2008Disco. Inst. blogger and staff member for the Kentucky affiliate of Focus on the Family wonders:
Are gay rights groups turning into hate groups?
No.
This has been your simple answer to another stupid question.
Cothran's argument is actually much stupider than it might seem:
For all their rhetoric about tolerance and diversity, when it comes right down to it the Tolerance Police really don't give a rip about anything other then imposing their own political agenda. And if you don't go along with it, they'll call you names, question your integrity, and now this.
The link originally attached to…
tfk | November 11, 2008When I moved out to California two Augusts ago, I had several moments a day when it just hit me: I live here! It was a little rush, a moment of recognition that my life was different in excellent and as-yet-unexplored ways. I still get those moments, especially when I get a glimpse of fog running in torrents through the valleys across the Bay, but also at seemingly innocuous moments.
Ever since driving back from Nevada last week, I've been struggling to organize my thoughts about what happened, and having a similar experience. I'll see commentary about President-elect Obama, or a photo of…
tfk | November 10, 2008Comparisons between President Obama and President Franklin Roosevelt are becoming common, and for good cause. Both swept to power amidst a collapsing economy, and both came to Washington with newly strengthened Democratic majorities – majorities elected on a promise of change.
One lesson I hope that Obama will learn from FDR is the idea of government through experimentation. Roosevelt's New Deal was an age when the administration enacted a wealth of new programs, some seemingly at odds with others. Roosevelt brought in a team of smart young staffers, and let them see which programs worked…
tfk | November 9, 2008I confess that I still don't know how I feel about the events of last Tuesday. There's an overwhelming elation, but also the knowledge that the next 4-8 years will be tough. Republicans will be sniping at the Obama administration, and the Democratic circular firing squad is already assembling. On some issues, it'll be necessary to reassemble the movement that elected Obama so that we can force him to do the right thing, and other times we'll have to get the band back together in order to make sure other people do what he wants them to.
But above all that political meditation, I don't know…
tfk | November 6, 2008This summer, I sat in with some big shots to discuss the future of science policy in an Obama Presidency, and of space policy in particular. One of the ideas I pushed, and which received general support, was the importance of a cabinet-level science advisor to the President, one who would be appointed and confirmed quickly, and given maximal access to the President and his decision-making process. Many scientists and science societies agree.
Now that Obama is planning his transition, the question moves to a more practical realm: who should he appoint?
First, I think the science advisor…
tfk | November 6, 2008I think RFK, Jr. would be a poor choice for the EPA or Department of the Interior (posts he is rumored to be under consideration for), but I'm not nearly as worked up as many of my fellow bloggers are.
In his favor, Kennedy has a reputation as a staunch defender of wild places, and an opponent of reckless development and of industrial pollution. Coupled with his unquestionable media savvy and name recognition, he would seem like a perfect choice.
The problem is, he got suckered by the anti-vaccination activists pushing the bogus and utterly discredited autism-thimerosal link. There's no…
tfk | November 6, 2008So conservatives kinda got spanked on Tuesday, and they aren't happy. Not only are the conservablogs pissed, I'm getting endless discussions on TV and radio about how conservatism, or the Republican brand, can rebuild. But I don't care. If they don't rebuild, I don't know that anyone will be worse off.
Disco. Inst. blogger and Kentucky Focus on the Family activist Martin Cothran tells his fellow conservatives to get over it, concluding:
We will know that conservatism has righted itself when its adherents don't go into a funk when they lose one election.
Cothran, apparently, hasn't noticed…
tfk | November 6, 2008I didn't acknowledge the joy that I felt when I learned that we will, in fact, have Supertrain in California. High speed rail from SF to LA, with future routes to San Diego, and hopefully on to Portland and Seattle one day. It's awesome.
The proposal has its flaws, not least that it isn't running to Oakland. Running the line through Oakland would've made northward expansion easier, since the terminus would've been on the mainland, and not isolated on a peninsula. Plus, I'm a fan of the East Bay.
Still, pretty cool to be in the future home of North America's first truly high-speed rail…
tfk | November 5, 2008I await my assignment to one of President-For-Life Elect Hussein Obama X's Slavery Reparation Camps.
tfk | November 4, 2008That was the chant tonight in the Rio Casino ballroom in Las Vegas tonight. Barack Obama won a resounding victory nationwide, and especially in Nevada, where I and some friends have been campaigning for several weekends. I'm also encouraged to see Indiana now in Obama's column.
More on that later, after I've had a chance to return to Oakland and process this incredible victory.
Worryingly, California's anti-family proposition, Prop. 8, seems poised to succeed.
Encouragingly, the creationist candidates in Kansas seem largely to have lost. Kathy Martin will keep her seat, reminding people…
tfk | October 30, 2008I just flew back from Washington, and boy are my arms tired. Expect blogging to be intermittent for a little while.
To fill the time, I suggest voting, and volunteering to get Obama elected and to defeat anti-family initiatives like Prop. 8 in California.
tfk | October 29, 2008Politico reports (via Benen):
Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s latest advertisement suggests her Democratic opponent, Kay Hagan, is a godless heathen.
“A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser for Kay Hagan,” the 30-second spot says, showing footage of the group’s members talking about their atheist beliefs on cable news.
“Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took godless money,” the ad concludes. “What did Kay Hagan promise in return?”
At the very end of the ad, a voice sounding like Hagan's says: "There is no God."
Kay Hagan teaches Sunday school…
tfk | October 29, 2008Seed Magazine's editors come out for Barack Obama:
Our world is more complex, dynamic, and interdependent than at any time in recent history. Financial markets are in turmoil, geopolitical conflicts abound, and our pale blue dot is in serious peril. Yet these are also times for great optimism — about what can be known and what can be accomplished, about our potential to discover and innovate. To navigate this new reality, to realize opportunity within this massive change, we need a new approach to governance and problem solving; we need a new way of looking at the world and a new set of…