Boycott Kellogg's

Pot activists aren't taking Kellogg's very public snub of Olympic champion Michael Phelps lightly: four national organizations are calling for a boycott of all the cereal and snack company's products – and asking their members to contact Kellogg with complaints.

The Marijuana Policy Project, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the Drug Policy Alliance are all urging a Kellogg boycott.

"Kellogg's had no problem signing up Phelps when he had a conviction for drunk driving, an illegal act that could actually have killed someone," said Rob Kampia, the Marijuana Policy Project's executive director.

I don't really give a damn about Michael Phelps, but Kellogg's is being kinda hypocritical here, aren't they?

Praise Darwin? Say What?

The Freedom From Religion Foundation placed "Praise Darwin" billboards in Grand Junction, Colorado; Dayton, Tennessee; Dover, Pennsylvania; and Whitehall, Ohio.

Now, I'm normally an ardent supporter of FFRF, but I don't like this. Darwin was a scientist; yes, a scientist with revolutionary theory that changed the way we look at the world, but a scientist none-the-less. So I don't think the word "praise" in this context is useful, or helpful.

Conflating science and religion, no matter how useful and wonderful the message, harms more than helps. I like the sub-message of evolving beyond belief, but I think the whole "Praise Darwin" business doesn't help their agenda any. I could get 100% behind the same exact, billboard without the word praise (or perhaps substituting Happy Birthday instead of Praise, given that Charles Darwin was born on February 12, the same exact day and year as Abraham Lincoln, by the way).

Never Trust a Whore

Wall Street CEOs, investment bankers charged prostitutes on corporate cards, madam says...

Visa, Mastercard or American Express? Or maybe a credit card from JP Morgan Chase?

Wall Street CEOs, lawyers, bankers and media executives chalked up thousands of dollars in prostitution charges on their corporate credit cards -- swiping their cards for $2,000 an hour prostitutes, according to a New York madam who pleaded guilty last year.

Kristin Davis, the madam in question, went public to ABC News this week; ABC will be broadcasting her interview Friday at 10 pm. Davis says she has a list of 9,800 clients, many of whom she says New York prosecutors deliberately avoided when taking her case, even though she offered them her annotated client list.

In what's sure to create a media firestorm parallel to that of when a Washington, DC madam announced that she was publishing her client list (which included at least one senator), Davis' comments come at a time where incredible ire is already focused on Wall Street and banking executives. The pressure for her to release the list will certainly be immense.

After re-reading this, maybe I should change the title of this blog entry to never trust a banker? Or never trust Wall Street? Or...

Executive Pay Limited to $500K? Poor Babies.

President Barack Obama imposed tough new rules on Wednesday to rein in corporate pay, capping executive compensation at $500,000 a year for companies receiving taxpayer funds as he seeks to put the struggling U.S. economy onto a new foundation.

"In order to restore our financial system, we've got to restore trust. And in order to restore trust, we've got to make certain that taxpayer funds are not subsidizing excessive compensation packages on Wall Street," Obama said, calling such lavish compensation packages "the height of irresponsibility."

If these companies are going to take tax-payer money, then they should have to live by rules like these. Kudos to the president for trying to implement some controls around these "bailouts." Of course, some are whining about it. For example, as reported in the New York Times: “That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. “And you know these companies that are in trouble are not going to pay much of an annual dividend.”

Oh, poor, poor babies. You ran an entire industry into the ground and now you have to squeak by on only half a million a year. Wah, wah, wah, you fucking whiners!

Which States Are The Most Religious?

New poll results from Gallup (January 2009) delves into the state of religion state-by-state within the United States. An analysis of more than 350,000 interviews conducted by Gallup in 2008 finds Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas to be the most religious states in the nation. Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts are the least religious states.



No surprises here. The South is traditionally very religious and the coasts, less so.

I think it would be very interesting if these results were cross-referenced against other demographics such as education level, average wealth, crime rate, and other mitigating factors. It wouldn't surprise me to see correlations between "belief" and these other factors...

Should Hillary be Removed as Secretary of State?

Constitutionally, maybe... consider this: A US diplomat has filed a lawsuit charging that Hillary Clinton's appointment as secretary of state is unconstitutional, a watchdog group representing him said Thursday.

The lawsuit filed by David Rodearmel argues that Clinton is "ineligible" for the job because the Senate approved, while she was a senator, a salary raise for her predecessor Condoleezza, Judicial Watch said in a statement.

According to article one, section six of the US constitution: "No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time."

In the lawsuit filed in a Washington court, Rodearmel wrote that "for almost a century, administrators of both parties have used various legal maneuvers to avoid complying with the constitution's emoluments clause."

He added: "I am bringing suit to finally resolve this issue and to seek compliance with the manifest tenor of the constitution."

The constitutional problem posed by the salary increase granted to Rice in January 2007 was raised last month when Barack Obama announced his intention to name Clinton his secretary of state.

In order to circumvent the problem, Congress decided that Clinton's annual salary would be reduced 4,700 dollars from Rice's at the end of her term, to 186,600 dollars -- the amount Rice earned before January 2007, when Clinton began her second Senate term.

Rodearmel said he was not pursuing "a partisan, political or personal issue."

He added: "To detach ourselves from the text of the constitution is a true slippery slope that would negate the rule of law. If the constitution needs to be changed, it should be done by the means the constitution provides."

What do you think? Does reducing her salary to the pre-vote level make this consitutional point moot? Or should we stick to a strict interpretation and remove her? Personally, I think trying to oust her is a bit crazy. That is, the intent of the emolumnets clause is not in jeopardy here... do you really think Hillary Clinton voted for that $4700 raise just so she could get that money if at some future point she became Secretary of State?

Seasteading? I hope they get ransacked by pirates!

...former Google software engineer, (Patri) Friedman is 32 but comes off much younger, with close-cropped hair and a slightly nasal voice. He is executive director of the Seasteading Institute, the nonprofit he founded in April 2008..."This isn't enough to create a whole new civilization," Friedman says. "But this is a seed."

This story is about people who want to build platforms in the ocean and create their own little nations on them. Hey, if that's what you want, go for it. But these people seem like rich brats intent on getting their own way all the time. Fuck them, I hope their "seasteads" get invaded, raided, and destroyed...

Is Texas' Science Education Evolving?

The State Board of Education moved a step closer to dropping a 20-year-old science curriculum requirement that critics say is used to undermine the theory of evolution.

After two days of heated debate, the board made a key vote Friday in favor of dropping a mandate that teachers address both "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theory.

A panel of science teachers had recommended that the language be dropped, suggesting instead that students be required to analyze and evaluate scientific explanations.

The new standards the board ultimately approves — a final vote on the curriculum proposal is not expected until March — will be in place for the next decade. They also will dictate how publishers handle the topic of evolution in textbooks.

This is good news because the creationists have been using the previous language as a ploy to introduce their religious teaching into science classes in Texas.

Additionally, it is good to know that the Center for Inquiry - Austin and the Clergy Letter Project have teamed up to produce a website called Teach Them Science to promote the proper teaching of evolution in Texas classrooms.