Philibuster

As if gay people didn’t have enough hate to worry about. I mean it’s one thing wondering if you’re going to get jumped and beat up, but also to face that same type of attack from the state. Hell in a lot of ways what happened to this couple is almost worst than a beat down. Unless the beat down ends in a death like a lot of them do.

Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place—wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health.One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes. Ignoring Clay’s significant role in Harold’s life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold’s “roommate.” The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold’s bank accounts to pay for his care.

What happened next is even more chilling: without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold’s lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.

Three months after he was hospitalized, Harold died in the nursing home. Because of the county’s actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years. Compounding this tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property.

Jesus christ. That’s some screwed up stuff there. Can you imagine that happening to a straight couple it would be all over the national news so fast that CNN might not mention Tiger Wood for gee I don’t know 30 mins.

Via the stranger

Well yesterday Obama outlined his new plan for NASA. I took a look at it and I have to say that I kind of like it. The Constellation program got the ax but I’m not unhappy about that. Like you probably heard it was over budget and behind schedule and really wasn’t very impressive anyway. I favored the alternative program that was being designed by a group of scientists. I don’t know but don’t think that that has replaced constellation. It looks more like instead of trying to rework and slightly improve the old tech we are going to branch out and try to strike ahead with all new stuff. The alternative program called for a lot more reuse of the shuttle tech.

I think this is a good direction. It breaks NASA out of the hum drum that it has been in. NASA should be making the ground breaking stuff and the rest should start to fall to the private sector. The more people involved in space flight the better and if NASA can lead the way with private enterprise pushing and following up then things will start to take off.

There is also a lot more money in general for science. This makes me happy and the main reason why I like Obama. He understands what science is and why it is so important. These days with technology ruling so much of our lives science is the driving force behind it. The more we understand about the world the more we push our tech to the limit, in space travel, atoms, particles, etc it spawns a host of other possibilities that work their way into our everyday lives. It boggles my mind how people don’t see the connection between these things. “How does smashing atoms together and learning about particles so small they defy logic and reason affect me? What does that have to do with my life. How does making a 100,000 powerdrill to work in a vacuum and wide ranging temps?” These people are small time people they don’t see the big picture. If you push your tech to the limit of what it can do and design things so outrageously complex and crazy it WILL improve anything that has anything to do with it. Magnets, MRI, superconductors, data storage and transmission. Want an ipod that stores even more stuff well that is being pushed not only by the demand of the consumer but also by the scientists that need to store and transfer amounts of data that dwarf even college music libraries.

Politics has for the last 8 years demeaned the expert instead of revered them, they have attacked the person who dares imply they know more than the common man just because they have devoted their lives to pursing and understanding concepts that the average person barely understands. The politics of the last 8 years has been one of the small picture person. The person who can’t see any benefit unless it is explicitly dictated in clear easy terms. Something that you can’t really do much because the benefits are sometimes so far reaching. This is why I support Obama and this is why I like this plan. It’s a big picture plan that aims for the future.

I have to say that Brad Pitt was one of the many actors I was pretty indifferent about. Most actors I’m pretty indifferent about. I don’t care that they are in a movie and I don’t care that they aren’t blah blah blah. But also he’s never annoyed me and generally I like the parts he plays and I think he plays them well.

I have some more respect for him after reading this quote in regards to him running for mayor of New Orleans.

“I’m running on the gay marriage, no religion, legalization and taxation of marijuana platform,” he told the Today show. “I don’t have a chance.”

Nice all things I can support. I would totally vote for him. Of course he’s totally right. There is no way in hell that he’ll get by with that whole no religion thing. A pity. I don’t think I’ll see an admitted atheist gain office in my life. Sooner will gay marriage be socially acceptable by almost all (you will always have wingnuts) and pot sold in bars than will an atheist be voted into a high position.

He also seems to be doing a good job helping out people down there. Way to go man.

via.

I’ve been hearing a lot of complains from atheists on the internet about Obama’s choice of words when he decided to give a call out to the “non-believers.” The general complaints are that the words are “negative” and “could have been chosen better.” Please, give me a break. If you haven’t noticed any word that describes lack of a belief is negative in the eyes of the believers. Atheist has been turned into some sort of dirty word by the wing-nuts. I don’t think it’s a dirty word nor do I think non-believers is a negative term. It describes various forms of atheism, agnosticism, or whatever perfectly. If you take PC too far than there can always be a problem. Some of the terms they would have rather Obama use; “freethinkers,” “rationalists,” etc would be a fast track to someone calling us “elitists.”

It seems to me that the underlining thing here is that there are a bunch of terms that could describe someone who doesn’t believe in an invisible man in the sky and those that do believe in that man waged an attack. They have been pretty successful in that it would be very unlikely to see a self proclaimed atheist elected to any high position. Even a good deal of the moderates are afraid of those evil immoral atheists. I was even a little hesitant to come out fully and say I’m an atheist for a long time. Hence they’ve turned certain terms into bad words for most people. The atheists who took offense at non-believers just want a word that the wing-nuts can’t turn into a bad word. Like “freethinkers” who doesn’t want to be a free thinker? It would be much harder to turn that into something bad.

I honestly could care less. I’m not so stuck on terms, words, labels, etc. It just doesn’t matter. I am who I am and I’m glad that we finally have a president who understands we need science and doesn’t try to actively squash it because it doesn’t say the things you want it to say. I think he’ll do a good job. I don’t really think he’ll be some sort of amazing president that will be honored as highly as ones like Roosevelt, Lincoln, or Washington but he’ll do just fine.

Obama seems to be picking scientists, for you know science adviser positions. It feels good to have the country starting down the road to being science friendly and far away from the stupid anti science crap that has been going on for the last 8 years.

Good news all around. I really wasn’t looking forward to another republican president. Especially one with one obviously anti science, and Palin. I have no words to describe Palin and her never ending god awful nonsense. But luckily I nor anyone else will have to suffer that. Obama isn’t perfect, no one, especially politicians, but at least his policies are more in line with what I want. Far more than with McCain. He also listens to all sides and then makes an informed decision. Several times he’s said one thing but then revised his statement once he’s gotten better information about it. I like critical thinking and don’t consider that flip flopping. It’s reasonable and everyone should do it more often. I think that will be the biggest difference here. Someone in the white house that can think and act accordingly to the best advice that experts can give.

In addition to the obvious good news, proposition 8 in California seems to be failing as well. Excellent. The senate seems to be taken but not the 60 seats we had hoped for. Well can’t have everything. This is long over due. We better make the best of it.

Update: Nevermind Proposition 8 won. It’s a shame. Mankind just can’t not hate someone.