Junk Science: The Last Refuge Of A Losing Argument

Yet another Republican opens his yap about reproductive issues and some stupid falls out. This time it’s Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas, who thinks fetuses masturbate. If they feel pleasure, surely they feel pain, his argument goes.

Um, no. And, um, no.

In fairness, when you operate in an information bubble, you’re going to see a lot of this type of pseudo science, and you’re not going to be equipped with any critical thinking skills or factual information to debunk it. So after we’ve all had a good laugh at Rep. Burgess’ expense, let’s look at what’s behind the right-wing’s use of pseudo science in the first place.

First and foremost, it’s the right’s attempt to sidestep Roe v Wade:

The fetal-pain bills do not directly challenge the Supreme Court’s judgment. Instead, they assert a new theory for outlawing abortion. The Nebraska bill states that “by twenty weeks after fertilization there is substantial evidence that an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain.” The legislatures passing these laws say that preventing this pain is a compelling state interest that justifies prohibiting abortion.

Hence, the loophole: Although the Supreme Court has identified preserving fetal life after viability as a compelling interest, the justices have never said it is the only one.

This tells us two things: first of all, that conservatives have given up on their “repeal Roe v Wade” battle cry. And second of all, it tells us conservatives know their anti-choice argument fails on its core merits, which has always been morality.

Conservatives have always maintained that they think abortion is morally wrong. That’s fine if that’s what you think, but clearly they haven’t gotten any traction with this approach or they’d be passing laws saying as much. And no wonder! They have zero credibility on the morality front in the first place. You can’t hear Rep. Marsha Blackburn say the House’s 20-week abortion ban is “for the children” without wondering why she doesn’t give a crap about children who are already born and maybe need some food stamps and education. Seriously, watching Republicans over the past 10 years has been absolutely hilarious. They really don’t care about anyone unless they’re in utero. After that, you’re on your own.

Clearly they’ve failed to make their morality case. So instead Republicans have adopted the value set of the culture at large — science! facts! pointy-headed experts with lots of alphabet soup behind their names! The fact that their “science” is completely bogus is something they hope you don’t hear.

The TV has been full of footage of Tennessee Rep. Diane Black and Marsha Blackburn claiming “the science is on our side”. Except it’s not. And Black is registered nurse, fer crying out loud. Her husband is a doctor! They should know better.

(By the way, who supplied all the B-roll of Republican women making anti-choice speeches on the House floor? I find it curious … )

Junk science is becoming a favorite ploy of the right. We’ve seen it with the climate change debate. And in fact, as this piece points out, the pseudo science ploy goes all the way back to Big Tobacco:

Probably the most prominent example of junk science involves what Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway call the “Tobacco Strategy,” which refers to the way that tobacco companies marshaled their own research “experts” (that were both bullied and bought) for judicial trials in the 1970s and 1980s that involved plaintiffs alleging serious health complications as a result of smoking cigarettes. The tobacco companies found that as long as they could present reasonably credible scientists to testify in suits alleging long-term physical harm from cigarettes, they would win lawsuits and avoid paying damages. Tobacco experts routinely testified that cancers, emphysema, heart attacks, and strokes were not prompted by cigarette smoking based on their own studies or cherry-picked data that argued against a causal link between smoking and negative health effects.

In both the case of cigarette smoking and fetal pain, the use of junk science demonstrates how credible, peer-reviewed scholarship is too often disregarded for pseudoscience that touts conservative values at the expense of empirical data. In these examples and in many more, junk science serves to manipulate public perceptions of the scientific process.

Funny how so much of our modern politics — propaganda, astroturfing, junk science, etc. — goes back to Big Tobacco. The thing is, Big Tobacco lost! They lost. We’ve got smoking bans everywhere and the rate of smoking in adults has been dropping for decades. Heck, I remember when you could smoke on airplanes, in movie theaters and even in grocery stores! Now some landlords are banning smoking in their rental units. So for all the junk science and astroturfing, they still lost.

And the anti-choice crowd is going to lose, too. Because truth always comes out. Always. Saying you have the science on your side doesn’t work when you don’t.

And I think it’s kinda cute that the right-wing anti-choice crowd will disparage our modern “permissive” culture every chance they get while at the same time adopting that value system themselves to make their arguments. It’s kinda sad.

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Filed under abortion

Today In Cheap Labor

Wake up, America. Your country is addicted to cheap labor. We’ll outsource our manufacturing to countries with cheap labor (like China, Vietnam, Honduras, Burma …). But those jobs we can’t outsource to the Third World? No worries! We’ll just bring the poors here!

The latest incident of modern-day slavery comes from a 7-Eleven franchisee:

The owners of 14 7-Eleven stores in New York and Virginia were charged on Monday by federal authorities with fraud, identity theft, and concealing undocumented immigrants. Authorities said conditions for undocumented employees at the stores were like a “modern day plantation system.”

As ABC News reported, federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch said the franchise owners gave at least 18 undocumented workers from Pakistan IDs stolen from the deceased and children, and then forced them to work 100 hours a week, often at a small fraction of the wages regular employees would receive. Many of the employees were forced to live in unregulated boarding houses owned by their employers.

I have to wonder what the hell some people are thinking. And don’t tell me, “Oh, these franchises were owned by Pakistani’s, they don’t know any better.” Because my Cheap Labor tag is filled with examples of American companies doing the exact same thing.

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Filed under immigration, Labor

Public Service Announcement: Pet Edition

People, I have to warn you: do not and I repeat do not, under any circumstances, use CostCo’s “Kirkland Signature” brand of flea & tick control! We’ve just had a disastrous experience not even 24 hours after applying the product to our cats.

I’ve used Advantage, Frontline and Revolution on our six cats for years. I didn’t know that CostCo even had its own brand of flea & tick treatment until Mr. Beale and I attended a crafts fair and CostCo had a table set up where they were advertising this stuff and selling memberships. Well, we’ve been CostCo members for years so we thought, “cool, a cheaper flea & tick treatment, what’s not to love?”

Hair loss! And a nasty mess all over the house, that’s what! OMG, this is the worst stuff ever. Almost as soon as we applied the treatment our cats’ hair started falling out. And the stuff doesn’t absorb like other flea products, so it leaves huge greasy stains everywhere — furniture, bedding, you name it. I had to wash the sheets on our bed after Quinn took his afternoon nap on it!

Look:

Quinn's hair started falling out ....

Quinn’s hair started falling out ….

So did Como's ..... finding this stuff EVERYWHERE ....

So did Como’s ….. finding this stuff EVERYWHERE ….

…. and I won’t bore you with photos of my dirty laundry. I’m wishing I’d read the product reviews at Amazon before using this stuff because the reviews are universally negative. I’m so disappointed in CostCo, it appears this product has been poisoning peoples’ pets for over a year, and there they are promoting it at a crafts’ fair? Shame on them.

I’m worried sick that more serious symptoms will appear. Our cats are like our children, and the idea that I’ve actually poisoned my animals has me frantic. I’m going to call the vet as soon as they open and see what they recommend, I might be spending my day giving six cats a bath. :-0

Anyway, it’s too late for me, but save yourselves! Do not use this product!

Quinn in happier times, like, last week.

Quinn in happier times, like, last week.

[UPDATE]:

Just spent about 2 hours on the phone with the vet, CostCo, product manufacturer, Animal Product Services Safety Center, etc. Diagnosis: bathing in Dawn dishwashing liquid.

They are not amused:

Pissed off kitty.

Pissed off kitty.

Misery loves company.

Misery loves company.

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Filed under cat blogging, Housekeeping, pets

Reality Blasts Hole Through NRA Talking Point

By now you’ve probably heard the incredibly sad story of Iraq War veteran Justin Thomas, a Green Beret who survived the Iraq War only to be killed by his 4-year-old son. It’s a tragic tale: the two were visiting a friend who had left a loaded gun lying on the living room TV stand like it was the goddamn remote control. The kid found it, and the predictable happened.

Charges, naturally, were not filed because hey, shit happens! Get over it! Survive a brutal war and get killed by your own kid because a friend left a gun lying around? Circle of life, y’all! It’s their own fault for arriving unannounced! Personal responsibility, people! Next time, call first!

/sarcasm

Now, Thomas’ mother has come forward to plead for gun safety.

PRESCOTT VALLEY, Arizona — A Tampa-area grandmother is urging people to keep firearms safely away from children after her four-year-old grandson picked up a gun and accidentally fired it, killing his father in Arizona last week.

“When I Googled this story on my son, I couldn’t even count the number of pages,” says Marilyn Andreatta about her son, 35-year-old Justin Thomas. “It was infinite — children shooting fathers, children shooting other children, children picking up a gun out of curiosity.”

Thomas was living in Phoenix and had taken his son for a surprise visit to a former roommate’s house about an hour and a half away.

Almost immediately, on a TV stand, police say the boy found the roommate’s gun, something he may have thought was a toy.

“It was loaded,” Andreatta told 10 News. “It was sitting out in the living room and he just didn’t think to put it away when my grandson entered the house.”

Who leaves a loaded gun lying around on the living room TV stand? An irresponsible idiot who should be prosecuted, that’s who. So what if you didn’t think anyone was going to drop by? People drop by all the damn time. What if your house was robbed? You’ve left a loaded gun lying out in the open where thieves can steal it, sending it out onto the streets to be involved in lord knows how many crimes.

This isn’t just the DFH peaceniks talking; it’s firearms safety instructors:

“Every day, I’m seeing something out there, some kind of accidental discharge,” he says. “To me, it’s almost not an accident at that point. It’s just neglect.

To prevent that, Krawtshenko urges people to unload their guns, take them apart and store the parts across different areas of the house, put guns in a safe, or use the lock that comes with the gun.

Almost not an accident? Drop the “almost,” buddy.

After the Newtown shootings, someone (I can’t remember where) wrote, “We don’t want to control your guns. We want you to control your guns.” But the fact of the matter is, gun owners are not controlling their guns. They’re leaving them lying around out in the open where children can find them. They’re leaving them in unlocked cars, where they are stolen.

You aren’t controlling your guns. We’re going to have to pass some laws and prosecute your negligence because too many of you aren’t being responsible.

Some facts to ponder:

• More than 5,0000 people have been killed by guns in the U.S. since the Newtown shootings. More than 360 of them were children and teenagers.

• There have been 14 mass shootings in the six months since Newtown.

• Guns killed more preschoolers in one year than they did law-enforcement officers in the line of duty.

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Filed under gun control

A Tale Of Two Federal Budget Items

Wow, to hear House Republicans these days, the food stamp program called SNAP is rife with fraud and corruption, has grown too big and is adding to the budget deficit. It must die.

Meanwhile, the same people overwhelmingly supported a new defense bill which, while offering some good protections to victims of sexual assault, also was padded with lots of extra spending. Such as:

The bill also restricts the transfer of detainees from Guantánamo Bay, funds construction of a new East Coast missile defense site and gives the Pentagon $5 billion more than requested for the war in Afghanistan.

Well isn’t that peachy! Sequester, semeshter! Because we all know the Pentagon is never, ever corrupt, fraud never happens, and the Pentagon would never add to our budget deficit. Hey, empires are expensive, y’all! :

huffpo-20120208-militaryspendingUS

What a bunch of fiscal phonies. Guess they’re going to force Senate Democrats to vote against this, so they can run those lovely ads accusing such-and-such liberal of voting against helping sexual assault victims in the military. I can hear it now: “They accuse us of waging a war on women, but look what Senator McLefty CommieHippie did!”

Assholes. Two can play at that game. Look who took food out of the mouth of a hungry child so they can continue to fund wars and killing? And you call yourselves Christians? For shame.

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Filed under budget, Congress, defense, deficit, food, Pentagon, Republican Party

Good News Friday

Good Friday, y’all! I have to share with you the best news I’ve discovered in my life. It’s called organic virgin coconut oil, and I use it on everything. I cook with it (great for popcorn), but the best use I’ve found is as a skin lotion. Folks, if you have any dermatological issue at all, organic virgin coconut oil will fix it. I had these funky bumps of unknown origin (granulomas, my dermatologist called them), and the doctor said there was nothing she could do about them. A couple weeks of coconut oil and they were gone! That was back in the fall and they haven’t been back.

This summer I’ve found organic virgin coconut oil works wonders on chigger and mosquito bites. They stop the itching and the bites go away in about two or three days. It’s a miracle, y’all.

You get it at the grocery store. But be sure to get the virgin coconut oil. Something apparently nasty happens to it when it gets refined.

You can thank me later. Other good news:

• A California effort to control black-carbon soot, the number two greenhouse gas agent causing global warming, led to a significant reduction in the state’s carbon footprint. Scientists hope the California experiment can be replicated elsewhere, which could slow global warming by as much as 15%.

• Connecticut passes a homeless persons’ bill of rights.

• Happy Birthday, Grand Central Station. Every time Mr. Beale and I visit New York City we make sure we stop by Grand Central. It’s incredible.

• SCOTUS strikes down patents on human genes. I’m actually trying to decide if this is good or bad since they left in place patents for modified genes. If I can’t patent my own DNA but a corporation can patent a modified version of my DNA I’m SOL. Also, if anyone hasn’t read the book, The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks, I highly recommend it. Seems to apply here.

• Despite setbacks, gun control is gaining ground.

• Southern Baptists won’t boycott the Boy Scouts after the organization’s decision to allow gay scouts. This is a big deal; seems like not too long ago, the SBC would have jumped at any chance to grandstand on this issue.

• Cockfighting is now a first-offense felony in the state of Nevada.

• The mayor of Carrboro, N.C. and 150 protestors were arrested protesting the North Carolina State Legislatures reactionary right-wing policies. There’s video.

• A Canadian company is fighting counterfeiters by emulating the iridescent wings of a South American butterfly. Just as an aside, this is why it’s important we protect even the smallest species. It makes me nuts when people say, “who cares about a snail darter? Build that dam!” Yeah, well no one thought much about slime molds until penicillin was invented.

• A San Francisco elementary school held a toy gun “buyback” event, where kids exchanged their toy guns for a book and a chance to win a bike.

• Secret life of the cat: very cool interractive look at what our feline friends do when we’re at work. You can select a cat and get a quickie video of what they are doing. Purely at random I clicked on Orlando, who promptly yakked up something nasty. OF COURSE I GOT ORLANDO. You guys, this is my life.

Good News, Tennessee Edition:

• A Federal judge has ruled in favor of the Occupy Nashville protestors who were arrested at War Memorial Plaza in October 2011.

• The cost of living in Nashville is at 88% of the national average, while the per capita income is at 109% of the national average. Sure there are some crackpot wingnuts in the rest of the state, but Nashville trends true blue. So, y’all come.

• A clean energy project successfully converts biowaste into electricity using gasification technology.

• What does it cost to drive an electric car in Tennessee? How about 97-cents a gallon? Some of us with solar panels on the roof pay less. Jealous, much?

• Gift Cards For Guns event in Nashville called a success.

• Despite efforts to legislatively marginalize GLBT people in Tennessee, businesses have embraced the GLBT community and are actively marketing to them. Money talks.

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Filed under Good News

Tennessee Gun Report

I’ve been remiss …. Sorry!

• June 12, 2013:

A 79-year-old woman was accidentally shot in the leg by a man who was target shooting.

• June 10, 2013:

A Chattanooga police officer started shooting at someone who was shooting at someone — and missed:

The department said the officer confronted a man who was shooting at people at the Southside Reunion. The officer fired several rounds, but the suspect was not hit. He fled the scene.

How’s that “good guy with a gun” stuff supposed to work, again?

• June 5, 2013

A Chattanooga couple have been found not guilty in the 2010 accidental shooting death of their 2-year-old. The child was shot in the chest by their 5-year-old who had found a loaded gun in the parents’ nightstand.

• June 3, 2013:

A 17-year-old boy shot himself in the leg with a stolen .45 in South Knoxville Monday afternoon.

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Filed under gun control, Tennessee