Divine Irony:

If one had sufficient evidence to warrant belief in a particular claim, then one wouldn’t believe the claim on the basis of faith. “Faith” is the word one uses when one does not have enough evidence to justify holding a belief, but when one just goes ahead and believes anyway.

Peter Boghossian
(via moralanarchism)

Ideas vs. Discoveries

ummagumma.co:

The Price of Silence

ummagumma.co:

Religion Because

ummagumma.co:

Scientific Proof the Rich Really Are Parasites

Via PZ Myers:

People who dismiss the unemployed and dependent as “parasites” fail to understand economics and parasitism. A successful parasite is one that is not recognized by its host, one that can make its host work for it without appearing as a burden. Such is the ruling class in a capitalist society.

—Jason Read

The Socialist Hell of $21-per-hour Minimum Wage

Firedoglake:

- A Danish worker who makes $21/hour at McDonald’s asks why American workers cannot a higher salary as it does not seem right.

Actually, it's partly our stupid franchise laws, but it's mostly that when governments demand corporations pay a decent wage, corporations do it and manage to survive.  Corporations pay shit in the U.S. because we let them.

Empowerment

ummagumma.co:

"Where Congress Won't Act, I Will."

If this be tyranny, I say make the most of it.




Full transcript here.

Cool Technology of the Century Is Here: Solar-Power Roads

They're going to have to fight the asphalt and concrete manufacturers on top of the entire fossil fuel industry, but this couple's invention might just become the climate-saving technology we need.

Emily Atkins at Think Progress:

Finding a way to replace regular, concrete roads with ones that could better serve a sustainable world has long been Scott and Julie Brusaw’s dream. Lately, the couple has been working on that dream so much that — at least on Tuesday — they didn’t even sleep.

“All of the publicity is keeping us hopping,” Julie said by e-mail on Wednesday afternoon, after Scott had fallen asleep. “I have over 6,800 unanswered emails in my inbox right now. Not counting all of the thousands I have responded to of course!”

The e-mails are about the couple’s Solar Roadways project, which aims to replace traditional asphalt and concrete roadways with solar panels that are covered with four-square-foot glass hexagon panels. The glass panels are designed not only to withstand the heaviest of trucks, but are also textured, encouraging tires to grip the surface and water to run off. The solar panels underneath generate energy from the sun, which can not only power nearby communities, but also the electric vehicles that drive above them. The power could also fuel embedded heating elements that would melt ice and snow, essentially making plows obsolete. To top it off, the power also lights up yellow LED lights instead of painted-on road lines, making night time driving safer.

The Rude One's Gotcher Religious Freedom Ratcheer

Of course we all know that when conservatards like Nebraska's Ben Sasse talk about "religious freedom" they really mean "freedom for evangelical rotestant freakazoids only," but that's all the more reason to call them out every time.

 But then...well...just read it: "Ben Sasse believes that our right to the free exercise of religion is co-equal to our right to life. This is not a negotiable issue. Government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances. He will fight for the right of all Americans to act in accordance with their conscience." That's some fucked-up shit right there. Government can't make citizens "violate their religious beliefs"? "Under any circumstances"? Huh.

Dude, the Rude Pundit is starting the Holy Church of Wanton Cock and Pussy where our sacraments include ingesting liquor and Molly and smoking shit-tons of pot while fucking freely on the altar. Don't violate our First Amendment rights, assholes.

To go another way, if Democratic nominee (and there is one) David Domina wanted to really fuck with Sasse, he should put out an ad saying that Sasse supports Shariah law because, well, Sasse kind of said he does. Muslims get to have their religious beliefs held sacrosanct against the government, too.
 

Don't forget the Church of Free, On-Demand Abortions and the Church of Full Employment With a $20 Minimum Wage, and the Church of Confiscatory Taxes on the Rich and the Church of Reparations for Slavery and the Church of Everybody Votes and the Church of Corporations Are Unconstitutional and ....

 

Mitch McConnell Killed Bipartisan Energy Bill Just to Help Repug Candidate in New Hampshire

Yet more proof that Mitch does not give a flying fuck about the Kentuckians he supposedly represents. He deliberately scuttled a bill that would have helped everyone in Kentucky who drives or uses electricity because he cares more about repug candidates in foreign states.

Kevin Drum:

Earlier this week, Republicans killed a carefully crafted, bipartisan energy bill that was three years in the making. Ostensibly, this was done in protest against Harry Reid's refusal to allow votes on additional amendments, an issue that's been a longtime grievance for the GOP. But that wasn't the real problem. After all, everyone knows that delicately constructed bills like this one need to be passed on an all-or-nothing basis once a majority coalition has been painstakingly assembled. What's more, the Republican amendments were all on tangential hobbyhorses (Keystone XL, EPA power plant regs, etc.) that were designed solely as election-year rube bait anyway.

No, it turns out that the bill was killed because Scott Brown, who's running for a Senate seat in New Hampshire against Jeanne Shaheen, asked Mitch McConnell to kill it. Jon Chait tells the story:

Brown is running against Shaheen this November, and Republicans — especially would-be Majority leader Mitch McConnell — want Brown to beat Shaheen because they want to win a majority. 

Brown needs to deprive Shaheen of the afterglow that would come from shepherding a (now rare) bipartisan bill through Congress....

Brown's gonna lose big to Shaheen, but Mitch will probably beat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who's running so repug-lite she should be on the repug primary ballot, not the Democratic one.

Abraham's Problem

ummagumma.co:

No, Mitch-n-Elaine Are Not Nice People, Not At All

Steve M:

A facade of decency, rationality, and conviviality shouldn't blind the rest of D.C. to the fact that Republicans are nonsense-spewing take-no-prisoners extremists. But it does.

Exploding A Kentucky Obamacare Lie-for-McConnell

Courtesy Joe Sonka of Leo Weekly:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce currently has the ad below running in Kentucky, starring Lexington business owner Patty Breeze, who says that the Affordable Care Act is “stifling business” in Kentucky and Sen. Mitch McConnell will fight it and Washington:

SNIP

Curious as to what Breeze specifically thinks about the Affordable Care Act, I decided to call her, and had a long phone conversation with her where she aired her many problems with the law.

SNIP

While Breeze talked at length about problems with the ACA state exchange in Kentucky (Kynect) — mostly involving a difficult to use website and insufficient staffing and training for Kynect staff and insurance agents — she also told me that there are many good parts of the law that she thinks we should keep, and we should improve the law through legislative fixes instead of repealing the law in its entirety and going back to the healthcare system we had before it.

As Steve Benen puts it:

In other words, the Chamber of Commerce is running a health care ad to help McConnell featuring a business owner who disagrees with McConnell about healthcare. Oops.

Two Miners Dead Because We Won't Bury Coal's Rotting But Still Murderous Corpse

Patriot Coal's executives should be imprisoned for premeditated murder.

Rude Pundit:

Eric Legg and Gary Hensley died in what is called a "coal outburst." What that means is that the walls of the mine burst, ejecting coal and gas into the area where the men worked. It's a nasty way to die, hot and violent. It means that the gas wasn't drained out of the area to relieve pressure, which is a significant safety violation, which is what Brody No. 1 was already cited for: "MSHA said that its inspectors had cited more than 250 'significant and substantial' violations during the 12-month period that ended Aug. 31. An MSHA audit of the mine’s records found that injuries resulted in nearly 1,800 lost-work days at the mine, 367 of which were from eight injuries that the company did not report to MSHA. A separate audit in 2012 found 29 injuries that were not reported." To do the math, Patriot owned the mine for 8 of those 12 months.

As always with mining companies, Patriot has been on the forefront of doing vile shit to workers. The United Mine Workers of America was already pissed off at Patriot for using bankruptcy to dick over miners and retirees. Yeah, when it sought bankruptcy protection last year, a judge approved allowing the company to cut health benefits and pensions to union workers and retirees. It shitcanned a contract it had with the union and renegotiated one that cost the company far less. The workers got dicked, but it was with a smaller dildo. The deal allowed Patriot to emerge from bankruptcy in December 2013.

To celebrate, in February, Patriot spilled 108,000 gallons of slurry waste into a creek feeding the Kanawha River, the same river that was polluted by Freedom Industries. Don't worry, though. It wasn't supposed to significantly impact the drinking water, which could be another way of saying that things couldn't get worse. (You can make your own joke about how Patriot and Liberty have fucked the people of West Virginia.)

Not just West Virginia.

QOTD

Digby:

If you want a little preview of what climate change is going to look like in a wingnut hellhole, there you go. Morons with guns taking what they want.

And using "religious freedom" as their excuse.

Pro-Life?

Divine Irony:

Congressman Awesome Strikes Again

I'd call this a gross understatement.

Is Steve Beshear Trying to Throw the Kentucky Gay Marriage Case?

Despite my loud and repeated praise of the Kentucky governor for his national leadership promoting Obamacare (albeit under the name "kynect"), I bow to no one as a critic of Beshear's constant kow-towing to the freakazoids. On that he is a cowardly worm and always will be.

But I think Zandar may be overlooking a possibility in this post on Stevie-boy's appeal of the federal court ruling that Kentucky must recognize same-sex marriages legally solemnized in other states.

But don't ask him any questions about same-sex marriage, because then he turns into a bigoted old Southern white guy.

In February, a federal judge ruled that Kentucky must recognize same-sex couples’ marriages from other states, a decision that was stayed pending appeal. Gov. Steve Beshear (D), who hired outside counsel because of Attorney General Jack Conway’s (D) unwillingness to defend the state’s ban, has filed his first brief in the appeal, presenting a novel economic argument against recognizing same-sex marriage.

Beshear’s argument to the Sixth Circuit echoes claims made by many other states defending marriage bans. Notably, because same-sex couples cannot “naturally procreate,” they are “not similarly situated to man-woman couples” and thus do not deserve the same benefits of marriage. Same-sex marriage, the brief argues, is a “new right,” so the state’s ban does not violate same-sex couples’ equal protection when it comes to marriage. But Beshear applies these assumptions in a new way: because same-sex couples do not contribute to the birth rate, it’s not economically beneficial for Kentucky to recognize their marriages.

“Though there is a cost to Kentucky by granting tax and other benefits to man-woman couples, a stable or growing birth rate offsets the cost,” the brief argues. “Only man-woman relationships can naturally procreate, and only those relationships, therefore, are afforded the state sponsored benefit.”

Which may be the most moronic statement I've ever read the man make, given all the time I'm lived here.  How many childless couples are married in Kentucky?  I'd like to know the percentage, because under Beshear's excruciatingly stupid logic, they don't deserve the benefits of marriage either.  What about infertile couples?  Are we now going to take marriage benefits away from them?

Is this clown serious?

I expect this kind of rank idiocy from Republicans, but not from Steve Beshear.  If there's any part of his record that is abysmal, it's his stance on LGBTQ folks in the Bluegrass State. Steve seems to think they don't exist.

The operative phrase there is "echoes claims made by many other states defending marriage bans." Those would be LOSING claims. In state after state after state, the procreation claim has been laughed out of court.

Steve Beshear may be a freakazoid tool, but he ain't stupid.  He knows the argument he's making is a dead-bang 100 percent loser.

I swear, he's deliberately throwing this case.

Republicans Have Always Been Racist, Anti-Worker Motherfuckers

It's all about the money.

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

This story suggests the very strong limitations of Republican labor policy and I want to once again push back on the idea that the Republican Party was a revolutionary political party. The vast majority of these railroad executives were Republicans. Many Republicans were perfectly fine with coerced labor so long as it wasn’t the actual conditions of slavery in the American South. That’s because for them, the problem with slavery was not the treatment of blacks, but the effect on whites, making them lazy, violent, and unconcerned with industrial progress. The abolitionists had different views and at least some of them were not horrible toward the Chinese, but they were always a pretty stark minority in the Republican Party. There was a revolutionary element in the Republican Party, yes, but their views of labor with the mainstream were more an alliance of convenience than a broad set of commonly held views. Far more common and growing ever more powerful in the years after the war were people like the Central Pacific executives, who would happily drive labor to the point of death for profit.