Origin of the term "enhanced interrogation techniques"

Andrew Sullivan reports on the origin of the term "enhanced interrogation techniques," as well as justification for their use that directly parallels those of the Bush administration.

Answers in Genesis Creationism Museum

P.Z. Myers at Pharyngula has put together a carnival of blog responses to the Answers in Genesis Creationism Museum, which includes a photographic tour of the museum. The museum's content is as bad as you might expect.

Contrasting Christian responses to Clark Adams' death

When I wrote my tribute to Clark Adams, I included this paragraph:

Suicide always provokes questions about the cause. Given Clark's activism in support of atheism, I won't be surprised to see opportunistic speculation on the part of some advocates of religion that Clark's atheism was why he killed himself, but there's no evidence to support that.

Patrick Trotter has now commented on Clark's death, exemplifying exactly what I was referring to, under the heading "When One has no Hope...":

This is what happens when someone has no hope or faith. Nothing to Believe in...Nothing or No one to turn to. It's a shame that a life this young was wasted. It's also a shame that he spent his whole life, dedicated to waging war against God.

I hope he found peace and salvation before he went.....but with his resume, I doubt it.

Patrick, who I'm sure never met Clark, is making a number of erroneous assumptions--that Clark believed in nothing, that Clark had no support, that his life was "wasted," and that he was "waging war against God." He's made no attempt to find out anything about Clark, what his life was like, what he thought, what he did, or the effects he's had on other people. Patrick Trotter here demonstrates the offensiveness of a religious bigot who has no interest in understanding, and who can't resist making the suggestion that Clark is now burning in hell for his disbelief, an argumentum ad baculum to try to keep his fellow believers in line.

Clark believed in many things--he was a fan of science, of magic, of comedy, of music, of a good argument and a good joke. He was a funny man who had many friends. He lived a productive life that had positive impact on everyone around him. And he didn't believe God existed--he no more waged war on God than on Santa Claus. He opposed religion and didn't care for religious ritual (even in secular form)--his statement that has been most repeatedly quoted is "If atheism is a religion, then health is a disease."

A contrasting Christian commentary on Clark's death comes from Anne Jackson, who ponders the extent to which Christian stigmatization of atheists helps reinforce their negative impressions of Christianity:

Aside from the extreme “turn or burn” preachers in our day, we “modern, contemporary” Christians probably do an equal part of stigmatizing those of different (or no) faiths. The “unchurched”…the “lost souls we must save!!”…I have far too often encountered the almost immediate and disapproving looks and attitude that so many of us habitually carry around when discussing someone who is a “wayward child” or “bless his heart, he’s just so lost.”

I am ashamed that I have not made it a bigger priority in my own life to be more sensitive and less prideful in my faith. And as the title of this post says, I pray for mercy and forgiveness because we know not what we do.

The only thing is…we should.

We should know. And we should love.

Anne shows herself to be a more thoughtful and open-minded person than Patrick--somebody that an atheist could possibly even productively interact with, to gain mutual understanding.

Foul smell at elementary school turns out to be dead body in air duct

It's not often that an event right in my neighborhood makes the front page of CNN's website, but it did today when a foul smell at Sierra Vista Elementary School in Phoenix turned out to be a dead body in the cafeteria air conditioning ductwork. Classes were dismissed for the day.

Apparently the guy was trying to break into the school and became trapped and died (presumably of thirst).

I've submitted this one to Fortean Times, which regularly prints accounts of stupid criminals and strange deaths.

The Arizona Republic covered the story earlier today.

What kind of atheist are you?

You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future. Scientific Atheist 75% Apathetic Atheist 50% Militant Atheist 33% Spiritual Atheist 33% Agnostic 25% Angry Atheist 8% Theist 8% What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Ron Paul is Bill Maher's "New Hero"

Bill Maher criticizes the Republican presidential debate and does an excellent job of re-contextualizing Ron Paul's position on Iraq and doesn't let the idiotic politician he's speaking with continue to misunderstand:

He wasn't saying that we were "asking for it." What he was saying was, "We should listen to our enemies and maybe the reason they're mad at us is because we've been meddling in the middle East." We were in Saudi Arabia. That's what Bin Laden was mad at us for. Now we're in Iraq and we're screwing up that country. Maybe if we listened to them instead of saying, "We're always the good people" we would actually make ourselves safer.

It's nice to see this position finally getting some serious consideration. Better late than never, I suppose--but dammit if the libertarians haven't been saying this crap all along!

Bogus voter fraud complaints from a bogus voter fraud think tank

Salon.com has an interesting article about how the American Center for Voting Rights, which was front-and-center in convicted felon ex-Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH)'s congressional committee hearings on alleged voter fraud, has disappeared.

The Republicans were attempting to crack down on alleged voter fraud in locations that had high Democratic voter turnout, despite the fact that no prosecutable cases of such fraud have turned up. The American Center for Voting Rights was an apparent think tank (which formed right before the hearings started) which offered sound bites and alleged research documenting the putative problem.

Several of the fired U.S. Attorneys were individuals who had refused to go after weak voter fraud cases against Democratic candidates in locations where the Republicans and ACVR were also trying to make it more difficult to vote and reduce Democratic voter turnout.

Check out the Salon.com article.

National Police Week rampage

Last week was National Police Week in Washington, D.C., which prompted D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier to attempt to prevent problems (as reported in the Washington Post):

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier put out fliers yesterday warning officers in town for National Police Week that they must obey city laws covering disorderly conduct, public drunkenness and other "unacceptable behavior."

Lanier ordered the fliers distributed around downtown in hopes of curbing complaints about officers drinking in public, playing loud music and causing other trouble.

This did not, however, prevent some abuses from occurring:

I am actually the citizen, who filmed 48 hours of misconduct out my window during police week.

The visiting officers did not have any problem drinking in public, howling, screaming, yelling and playing bagpipes until 2, 3 and 4 am below our window. They were taking open conatiners of beer into the Irish Channel. They were urinating on the church steps across the street and left behind half empties for the homeless, when they staggered back to the hotels.

I also have video, which has not been released, of DC MPD sitting in their cars, standing by their cars, while these guys started a bagpipe parade at 12:45 AM on Tuesday morning. For them, I have close ups of the car numbers and the officer's faces as much as my camera would allow.

I called a total of 9 times, which I documented with times and which officer answered the phone and sent an email to the Mayor, the City Council Members, Chief Lanier and NBC 4.

Chief Lanier showed up at my door 4 hours later and has thus far, at least tried to show some interest in making positive changes.

In fact, I have been asked to meet with Commander Burke, Commander Groomes, representatives from DCRA (permits), ABRA (Alcohol Regulations) and EMA this week to further address the problem.

I had the video posted on youtube.com. My account was hacked after I received threats from a self identified "DC police Officer" warning me about the size of the "Brotherhood and airing dirty laundry."

I have started trying to get the video back up and should have it put together again by tomorrow.

I ask that if you have specific complaints about National Police Week, you please forward them to me. I have set up an anonymous e-mail to collect those complaints. As of today, I have 57 pages of comments, complaints and threats.

I have not had much support and in fact do fear for my safety. I signed my name to the complaint to the Chief, and am not 100% certain that information will stay confidential.

Any input, help, support or even a few kind words at this point, would be appreciated.

You can look up the videos on youtube.com by searching Inthepubliceye. The e-mail account is a gmail account using the same name.

Here's one of the videos, which shows a number of laws being violated--drinking alcohol/having open containers on the public street, operating a Segway on the street while drinking alcohol, leaving empty bottles on church steps, and so forth.

Clark Adams, RIP

I received the unfortunate news this morning that Clark Adams has died, and that he took his own life.

Clark was a long-time board member of the Internet Infidels (and for many years its public relations director) and a frequent speaker and attendee at atheist, freethought, humanist, and skeptical events. He was a jovial, funny man whose talks about atheism in popular culture were always crowd-pleasers. He was not particular about what label to put on his nonbelief, and was supportive of all groups that promoted rationality and critical thinking, including the "brights"--though he did not care for what he called "religion without the god stuff."

In a recent posting in which he gave his opinion of last month's celebration of 30 years of Humanist chaplaincy at Harvard University, he described himself as a "conference junkie," noting that he attended "upwards of a half dozen atheist, humanist, skeptic and freethought conventions a year." He frequently spoke to freethought and atheist groups on college campuses, and was an active promoter of student freethought groups like the Secular Student Alliance and the Campus Freethought Alliance. He was one of the founders of the Secular Coalition of America and regularly helped organize the annual July gathering at Lake Hypatia, which is where I first met him. The frequency of his speaking schedule can be seen in an April 2006 posting on the Internet Infidels Discussion Boards, which showed him giving six talks in April, June, and July, which included talks on "How to Prevent Your Freethought Group From Looking Like a Funeral" and "Godless Role Models."

Suicide always provokes questions about the cause. Given Clark's activism in support of atheism, I won't be surprised to see opportunistic speculation on the part of some advocates of religion that Clark's atheism was why he killed himself, but there's no evidence to support that.

He attended a performance by his favorite comedian, Doug Stanhope, on Sunday evening, and was found by a friend and his ex-wife in his apartment after the friend did not receive her expected daily call from him. She announced Clark's death on the Internet Infidels Discussion Boards, where his friends have left their condolences.

Clark has left a mark on the world in the lives of people he's met at these conferences, and communicated with online. He's left an extensive record of postings, which he usually closed with "THOUGHTfully Yours, Clark," which includes the story of his deconversion to atheism in the south.

If anyone has a video record of any of his presentations, it would be great to see them made available online.

Clark will be missed.

UPDATE: Cathe Jones has put up a tribute to Clark, with some links to some of his writings. She has put up a more extensive blog entry now, as well.

UPDATE: Friends are also leaving tributes on Clark's MySpace page, and there are blog tributes from Friendly Atheist and Mark Vuletic.

UPDATE (May 24, 2007): The American Humanist Association has issued a tribute to Clark.

UPDATE (May 25, 2007): Information about a memorial service for Clark will be posted at the Las Vegas Freethought Society website. His ashes will likely be scattered at Lake Hypatia at the June 30-July 2 event he was scheduled to emcee.

UPDATE (May 27, 2007): Raul Martinez has put up a story about an amusing experience with Clark a few months ago.

UPDATE (May 31, 2007): There will be a memorial service for Clark from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, June 3 at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Las Vegas, 3616 E. Lake Mead Blvd. There will also be a memorial service at the Lake Hypatia event mentioned above, at 12 noon on Monday, July 2.

UPDATE (June 7, 2007): Eric Pepke has put up a tribute to Clark.

UPDATE (May 25, 2008): Clark's MySpace account has been deleted, but this story in the Las Vegas Weekly reports what happened after Doug Stanhope heard about Clark's death:

---
A few days later, he receives word that longtime fan Clark Adams killed himself the night after the Tommy Rocker’s performance. Not that it pushes him over the edge; more apparently, it provided a high note upon which to take his leave. In Adams’ MySpace “Heroes” box, he’d included Doug Stanhope under the heading, “People I Admire that I’ve Had the Honor of Meeting.”

There’s a bit on 2002’s Die Laughing: “Life is like animal porn. It’s not for everybody. ... Life is like a movie, if you’ve sat through more than half of it and it’s sucked every second so far, chances are it’s not gonna get great right at the very end and make it all worthwhile. No one should blame you for walking out early.”

And there’s a new entry in Adams’ Comments box from one Doug Stanhope:

I don’t believe in Heaven but I have a strong faith that there is MySpace in the afterlife and we will all be checking our comments.

May your eternity be free of Macy’s gift-card spam.
Run amok, dear sir.

life is like animal porn ...

Even if he’s not the best man for the job of deregulating their lives, Stanhope clearly empathizes with those regular people he speaks for, if not always with. He may be solely in it for him, baby, but whether he’s flitting from Vegas to Bisbee or Edinburgh to the Oval Office, he’s pushing the physical and mental and comedic boundaries for all those Joe Schmoes out there who can’t. No drunken goof about it.

---

At a show in Indianapolis, Stanhope started to talk about Clark Adams (at 4:26), but got distracted and didn't come back to it (at least in the first three of twelve parts on YouTube).

Ahwatukee Pet Idol

The Ahwatukee Foothills News is sponsoring an "Ahwatukee Pet Idol" contest, all proceeds of which will go to the animal rescue group that Kat and I volunteer for, Arizona R.E.S.C.U.E.

Our dog Otto is a contestant and could use your vote...

UPDATE (June 23, 2007): Otto has made it through the first two rounds of cuts and is one of the 25 finalists in the last round of voting.