Link farm and a random thought

In no particular order:

The ultimate in data storage. Scientists have found a way to store digital information in DNA. The storage method is sophisticated enough that all information currently in hard drives could fit into the palm of your hand.

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Quote of the day (emphasis added):

“What always interests me about defenders of creationism is how they clearly don’t think of children as people in their own right, but instead property that you use to enact your ideological obsessions.”

I personally would edit that quote to include the entirety of the rotten parental rights movement. Those people really do see their own kids as enemies and who’ll do anything to prevent those children from thinking for themselves and not being a projection or perfect reflection of the parents. Libby Anne at Love, Joy, Feminism has emphasized this point multiple times.

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Solar power is well on its way to becoming cheaper than coal. It might reach that point before the end of the decade. This is important, as it would eliminate much of the point of burning coal, which is important for climate change mitigation. (It’s still better to start today, however).

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I fully agree with these suggestions on how to write a better fantasy story. (Via all these people).

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Did you know that (supposedly) the committee of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women supposedly “Told Libya to re-interpret the Koran in the light of CEDAW”? To rational people, this is an excellent reason to support the CEDAW. But, Echidne found out, wingnuts actually use this as a justifiation for opposing the CEDAW. To their credit, at least they’re honest.

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Two of the comments on a post on Brute Reason have won awards. You just have to see them.

And yes, I did manage to read and finish what is visible of the first comment. It starts repeating itself part way through Can’t it be all new woo?

This post has been edited since publication.

Send this woman to college

I urge all of my readers to go here and cast a vote for the essay there. It will allow the author to get a scholarship so she can go to college. She is an escapee from the Quiverfull/Christian Patriarchy movement and education will be a huge help for her. It will take only a few seconds you don’t have to provide any information to help.

So go vote.

The real problem

I have no problem with homeschooling. It may well be the best choice for certain people, and since I cannot possibly know everyone’s circumstances or situation, I cannot decide that for them. The majority of them, I’m sure, have nothing but the interests of their children’s education at heart and lack any sort of ulterior or ideologically–driven indoctrinination/brainwashing motive. Indeed, some people homeschool specifically to get away from fundamentalism plaguing public schools in some areas, such as creationism and abstinence ignorance–only sex education.

What I do have a problem with is people who homeschool under the guise of “freedom of religion” to abuse their children and deny girls their rights (via Denialism) (my emphasis):

[Erika Diegel Martin] recounts notable educational gaps in her own family, where there was little academic encouragement. One of her brothers decided to quit school at 16 and faced no parental opposition. The youngest, Diegel Martin says, ceased his formal education at the age of 12, when she left home and was no longer available to teach him herself. And though she was fortunate enough to receive sex education before leaving public school, her siblings were not so lucky. Their parents never taught the three other children about sex, and Diegel Martin remembers giving her 21-year-old sister “the talk” the week before she got married. She also had to intervene to ensure that her younger brothers learned about sex.

As for herself, when she completed her schooling, she says her parents did not allow her to obtain her GED as proof of high school graduation. Their reason? “The girls weren’t allowed to get a GED because we were told we wouldn’t need it. It would open up opportunities that were forbidden to us. We would work in the family business until we got married, and then become homemakers.

“When I talked about wanting to go to college, my parents said, ‘Well, you’re a girl. You don’t go to college.’”

In other words, they’re breeding dependent doormats.

Quiverfull is one of the worst offenders when it comes to using “freedom of religion” and the parental rights (to abuse, to deny healthcare, and to deny education) movement to oppress women. Here what one of the biggest proponents of this movement, Doug Phillips, said (via Libby Anne) (again, my emphasis):

“Daughters aren’t to be independent. They’re not to act outside the scope 
of their father. As long as they’re under the authority of their fathers, fathers have the ability to nullify or not the oaths and the vows. Daughters can’t just go out 
independently and say, ‘I’m going to marry whoever I want.’ No. The father has 
the ability to say, ‘No, I’m sorry, that has to be approved by me.’”

Very rarely do these people make it more clear that it’s about ownership of women.

Freedom of religion shouldn’t be “freedom” to oppress women. If there is a conflict between women’s rights and religion, women’s rights ought to win 100 times out of 100.

When you think they couldn’t go any lower (updated)

Shorter GOP in Michigan Senate: “It’s okay to bully in the name of Jesus.”

A bill was recently passed by the Michigan Senate. It is a purported anti–bullying bill, but in reality the bill basically protects those who bully based on moral convictions:

This section does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil and parent or guardian.

In other words, it’s a how to bully act.

In addition, while IANAL, the law protects sincerely held beliefs, including those by teachers. If a teachers sincerely believes that people in group X are going to burn in hell forever, this law seems to protect those statements. Hence, the la looks like it also serves as a backdoor way to legalize proselytization in school, therefore violating the Establishment Clause.

Via Lawyers, Guns, and Money.

Update: The section in question has been dropped from the bill (via).

Abstaining from the truth

From the Huffington Post (emphasis in original, links removed):

Texas lawmakers cut sex ed from two six-month courses to a single unit of “abstinence only” education. But early indications showed that the program wasn’t working. In fact, teens in almost all high school grades were having more sex after undergoing the abstinence only program. By 2007, Texas had the highest teen birth rate in the nation.

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The results [of Texas' sex miseducation]? Teen pregnancy in Texas went up — higher than before “abstinence only,” and more than 50 percent higher than the national average. Even more troubling was that repeat teen pregnancy went up — to the point that it, too, led the nation. It turns out that Texas kids thought that “if birth control doesn’t work, why use it?”

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But none of this seems to matter to Gov. Rick Perry. When confronted with the dismal statistics during an October 15, 2010 televised interview with Texas Tribune reporter Evan Smith, Perry’s response was to reaffirm that “abstinence works.”

The audience laughed and Smith pointed out the state’s abysmal teen pregnancy rate. “It works,” insisted Perry. “Maybe it’s the way it’s being taught, or the way it’s being applied out there, but the fact of the matter is it is the best form of — uh — to teach our children.” Smith asked for a statistic to suggest it works, and Perry replied that “I’m just going to tell you from my own personal life, abstinence works.”

Hat tip to DAMMIT JANET!

I heart public libraries

About a week and a half ago, I arranged an interlibrary loan for a book I had been wanting to read for over a year. Last Friday, the process was finished, and the book was ready for me to pick up. I did that today. The people were friendly and very helpful; the service was prompt.

This, to me, demonstrates how public libraries improve access to information. The ILL process allows people to gain access to books they might otherwise not have easy access to. Access to, and freedom of, information is important. It makes people informed. This is why you should always support public libraries and access to information.

BTW, in case you’re wondering, the book in question is Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement by Kathryn Joyce. I’ll post a review and comments when I’m finished reading it.

The scandal of the Republican mind

American evangelical Mark Noll’s book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, has one of the most memorable opening lines of any book I’ve ever read. That memorable line is: “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” The thesis of the book is not that American evangelical Christians are stupid, but rather the pervasive anti–intellectualism that permeates the movement. The result is that gut feelings and truthiness are trusted more than education; that “God did it” is always the best explanation; that the “man on the street” always knows better than the experts. Where independent thought is discouraged as Rushbo, Bam Bam, and the (likely hypocritical) pastor bleating from the pulpit do the thinking for you.

With this in mind, I believe that we have found the primary explanation for why students are leaving the United States Republican Party in droves (via). Nils August Andresen’s series of posts covers this. He considers it not to be due to students becoming more leftist. He also discounts the theory that it is due to indoctrination of students by liberal professors (correctly; there is no evidence that academic freedom is being threatened, and claims otherwise or of indoctrination are just whining by the alternate reality people). Rather, he attributes it to students being repelled by the anti–intellectualism and hostility to science that is within the GOP; that is, the rise of the Religious Right. It wasn’t always this way: in the 1950s, for example, academia was mostly Republican.

It doesn’t have to remain this way; a rational party serves as a necessary counterweight to the other party. When both parties are rational, everyone benefits, as the foolish excesses of both the left and right are avoided.

Clearly, the scandal of the Republican mind is that there is (no longer) much of a Republican mind.