GOP's not-so-secret agenda

I read this morning that with health care reform now "repealed," the GOP congress is going after climate change. Just like health care, the GOP sees any attempt to regulate greenhouse gasses as being job-killing.

According to Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., "We will be active and aggressive using every tool in the toolbox to protect American jobs and our economy by rolling back the job-destroying (greenhouse gas) regulations." (I suppose the Republicans' filibuster against the auto industry bailout last year was also done out of concern for jobs.)

It just so happens that I've obtained a hither-to unknown wikileaks release on the GOP's agenda for this year:

1. repeal health care reform
2. rewrite the Clean Air Act
3. repeal the 14th amendment
4. repeal the 13th amendment (arguably a symbolic gesture)
   
5. prohibit the teaching of evolution
6. declare war against Poseidon

Saving the Weasels

The GOP-controlled congress is living up to its promise of trying to roll back health care reform. HR 2 has been given the odd name of Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act. The words Repealing and Killing have negative connotations, however. If the GOP would take my advice -- they won't -- they should name the bill positively, say Save the Weasels Act.

Make no mistake about it -- since the current health care reform law has made it illegal to cancel an insurance policy because of a pre-existing condition, Insurance Policy Processing Clerks have been having a tough go of it. Many of these weasels, whose job it is to cancel insurance policies, have been out of work. You'd think that the GOP would have extended jobless benefits to these, their brethren. But they are looking at the big picture. If they help the insurance companies recover their enviable ability to cancel policies, then the weasels will have their jobs back. Brilliant!

Besides, weasels don't contribute much in the way of campaign donations.

Crap Continues

John Raese's latest pitch for becoming the next senator from West Virginia is an attack against his opponent, Governor Joe Manchin (D).

Obsessing against health care reform (i.e., "Obama Care"), the ad claims that the reform is going to result in $400 billion in Medicare cuts for seniors.

According to FactCheck.Org, however,

The claim that Obama and Congress are cutting seniors’ Medicare benefits to pay for the health care overhaul is outright false, though that doesn’t keep it from being repeated ad infinitum.

The article even goes on to cite AARP's Myths vs. Facts:

Myth: Health care reform will hurt Medicare.

• Fact: None of the health care reform proposals being considered by Congress would cut Medicare benefits or increase your out-of-pocket costs for Medicare services.
• Fact: Health care reform will lower prescription drug costs for people in the Medicare Part D coverage gap or "doughnut hole" so they can get better afford the drugs they need.
• Fact: Health care reform will protect seniors' access to their doctors and reduce the cost of preventive services so patients stay healthier.
• Fact: Health care reform will reduce costly, preventable hospital readmissions, saving patients and Medicare money.
• Fact: Rather than weaken Medicare, health care reform will strengthen the financial status of the Medicare program.

Is This All They Have?

The death of Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) has left it up to the 2010 mid-term election to decide upon his successor. While it's sad that Byrd remained in office until he died of old age, you have to say that the man had class. Unfortunately, class is something sorely lacking in one of the contenders for his seat.

Morgantown millionaire John Raese is once again running for U.S. Senate on the Republican ticket.

His platform is simple: he's not going to be a rubber stamp for Barack Obama, which is another way of saying that he will be a rubber stamp for the "Party of No." He wants to go to Washington to stop deficit spending. That's something that pretty much every Republican says they'll do, but what they actually do is an entirely different story. He wants to repeal health care reform. Is this because of a public outcry, or is it because large employers may be subject to fines if they don't provide health insurance for their workers? And he wants states to be able to protect themselves. Protect us from what?

You hardly have to read between the lines of Raese's biography to see what kind of person he is. Yes, he's a "businessman," but he inherited these businesses from his parents. He has a B.S. degree in education from WVU, but I doubt he has ever set foot in any classroom. His record of public service is virtually non-existent, unless you count a brief stint as W.Va. Republican Party chairman. So can you believe him when he says that he wants to work for you?

These are the credentials of someone who thinks he can fill Robert Byrd's shoes.

Non-Overlapping Visions

In my wandering about the web the other day, I came across the term "non-overlapping magisteria," which I had not read before. Yes, I don't get out often enough. A quick highlight and right-click of the term took me to the Google, where definitions abound.

According to Wikipedia, non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA, for short) is a term espoused by Stephen Jay Gould:

The magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty).

I've offered Gould's direct interpretation here -- the actual Wikipedia definition is a bit abstruse to me.

More succinctly, science and religion occupy two irreconcilable realms of human experience.

Now, back to Google. Just a line or two down from the Wikipedia entry is a Conservapedia entry. Conservapedia, if you don't know, "is a clean and concise resource for those seeking the truth. We do not allow liberal bias to deceive and distort here."

So, to avoid deception and distortion, Conservapedia has this to say about NOMA:

The idea of Non-overlapping Magisteria proposes to separate science from religion, with each to govern independently in their respective domains. Science gets the what and why, while religion gets meaning and value. (See also fact-value distinction.) The idea is opposed by those who see God as the Author of science (see Creationism).

It is an apologetic put forward by liberal evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould. [1] Gould described NOMA as "a blessedly simple and entirely conventional resolution to ... the supposed conflict between science and religion."

Magisterium is defined as "a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution" and the NOMA principle is "the magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty)."

This theory is demonstrably faulty because it is obvious that the intelligent design of the universe would leave behind perceptible evidence allowing the existence of God to be inferred without reference to faith. (My emphasis) Furthermore the NOMA principle would directly contradict Biblical evidence of miracles which if observable by scientists would be demonstrably true.

To embrace NOMA would be to consign the entirety of scripture to metaphor and storytelling (me again: and your point is?).

Now here I was thinking that Wikipedia was being abstruse. I'm trying to parse the fourth paragraph: This theory is demonstrably faulty. I.e., this theory is wrong; here's why... "because it is obvious." Question: What's obvious? Answer: That God has left behind perceptible evidence of his/her existence. This evidence is apparently so obvious that we are not going to explain what that is. Ah, but wait: this evidence -- if observable by scientists -- makes it demonstrably true. So we only need to transport a scientist to biblical times. If we could, ipso facto, this would be observable. Air-tight logic.

And you laugh at me for believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster! (alternately)

A Bug in Heaven

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake - Augeries of Innocence

After seeing someone else's macro picture of a Lilly of the Valley flower stalk, I was inspired to duplicate the feat. I have an increased admiration for the photographer now, because I've learned how hard it is to find just the right stalk and just the right angle.

The difficulty, you see, is in being able to get a whole row of those little white blooms to stay within focus -- difficult to do when the row is low to the ground and in an arc.

To make the following shot, I turned the center rod of my tripod mount around upside-down and suspended the camera low to the ground. It was breezy and it was still difficult to focus because the camera was so low to the ground.

What's interesting in this picture, however, is if you zoom in on the top-right flower you can see an insect inside. I'm not sure this time if it's an ant like the one on the Periwinkle. It looks smaller, and the sharpness is just not good enough.

It's an amazing world out there, right under our noses.

Natural adaptation?

Yesterday evening, I was trying to get a decent macro photograph of one of the lovely blue periwinkle flowers by the side of my house. I was dissatisfied with the results, however. The ground level and angle was difficult for my tripod, so I tried hand-holding the camera.

Although none of the periwinkle pictures were noteworthy, I discovered an interesting thing on the computer screen that I had completely missed at the time of shooting. In the center of the periwinkle bloom was a little red ant.

What's interesting is that if you look closely, you'll see that the ant is facing away from the camera (shy thing). However, there are what look to be two dark eye spots on the abdomen.

I cannot help but wonder whether this might be a natural adaptation to fool a potential predator into thinking that the foraging ant is facing towards it, rather than blithely away.