Sarah Palin, promoter of pork barrel spending

Before Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the town received no federal funds. As mayor, she hired the Anchorage law firm of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, to help the town obtain federal funds. The Wasilla account was handled by Steven W. Silver, a partner in the firm and former chief of staff to indicted-for-corruption Sen. Ted Stevens, who helped secure $67 million in federal earmarks for the town of 6,700 residents--$4,000 per person.

(Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)

Palin has stood up to corruption, blowing the whistle on unethical behavior by the chairman of the Alaska Republican Party despite taking a lot of heat for it. But she's also gotten into some trouble of her own, and it almost seems that she fell into her anti-corruption role by accident.

A description of Palin from her fellow Wasilla, Alaska resident Anne Kilkenny is well worth reading. (Kilkenny is also quoted regarding Palin in this New York Times story.) For further perspective, here's another close-up view of Palin as she's seen in Alaska.

UPDATE (September 4, 2008): As governor of Alaska, Palin asked for $550 million in earmarks in her first year in office, and for 31 federal earmarks totaling $198 million so far this year. Oink!

John McCain has long been a critic of earmarks. Turns out he has specifically been critical of earmarks requested by Sarah Palin.

Misinformation about Google's Chrome EULA

Adam Frucci at Gizmodo writes:

So, are you enjoying the snappy, clean performance of Google Chrome since downloading yesterday? If so, you might want to take a closer peek at the end user license agreement you didn't pay any attention to when downloading and installing it. Because according to what you agreed to, Google owns everything you publish and create while using Chrome. Ah-whaaa?

This is false. The EULA doesn't transfer ownership of anything. The provision that has everyone upset is the rather broadly worded provision 11.1:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

Note that the very first sentence says that you retain all intellectual property rights. This gives Google the rights to do the things it already does--let other people play YouTube videos you upload, syndicate your Blogger content, store cached versions of your web pages, allow people to see versions of your web pages translated into other languages, display thumbnails of images on your web pages in Google Images search, and so forth. The last sentence appears to limit it solely for the purpose "to display, distribute and promote the Services" and not allow them to, say, use your content in order to compete with you, undermine your intellectual property rights, etc.

An earlier provision in the EULA also makes this explicit:

9.4 Other than the limited license set forth in Section 11, Google acknowledges and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post, transmit or display on, or through, the Services, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in that Content (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). Unless you have agreed otherwise in writing with Google, you agree that you are responsible for protecting and enforcing those rights and that Google has no obligation to do so on your behalf.

So even if 11.1 is a bit too broad, there's this provision to fall back on if you feel your intellectual property rights are being infringed.

Some commenters at Gizmodo said that they didn't agree with this provision and therefore have uninstalled the software, but that's not sufficient to terminate this agreement. Terminating the agreement requires you to give notice to Google in writing and close all of your accounts with them:

13.2 If you want to terminate your legal agreement with Google, you may do so by (a) notifying Google at any time and (b) closing your accounts for all of the Services which you use, where Google has made this option available to you. Your notice should be sent, in writing, to Google’s address which is set out at the beginning of these Terms.

One thing that is clear from these terms is that Google definitely wants to interpose itself between user and content in a manner similar to what Microsoft has done for years with Windows, and in a much stickier way than telecom providers are between user and content. If you have network neutrality concerns about telecom providers or had antitrust concerns about Microsoft's bundling of the Internet Explorer web browser with Windows, you should probably have similar concerns about Google, given the way use of its browser is bundled with an EULA covering all of its services. Shouldn't I be able to discontinue this EULA by getting rid of the browser, and not by terminating all of my accounts with Google? Will there be a lawsuit about unbundling the Google Chrome browser from the rest of its services?

UPDATE: Ars Technica reports that Google says this was an error and they will be correcting the license, which was borrowed from other Google services, apparently without careful review. It also notes that since Chrome is distributed under an open license, users can download the source code and compile it themselves without being bound by the agreement.

The major flaw in the 11.1 language is that it gives Google the right to publish content you merely "display" in the browser, even if it's private content on a local server or restricted content from a secured website. That clearly wasn't their intent, but that's an implication of how it was written.

Palin Christian heritage declaration misquotes, misrepresents

Last year, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin declared "Christian Heritage Week" in Alaska from October 21-27, 2007, with a proclamation that misquoted and misrepresented various Founding Fathers, at least two of whom would have opposed just such a proclamation (Jefferson and Madison).

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars steps through her proclamation and corrects the misinformation.

Palin lies about the bridge to nowhere

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars shows that McCain's VP nominee, Sarah Palin, didn't take long to utter her first falsehood as candidate. Near the beginning of her acceptance speech, she said:

And I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress -- I told Congress, "Thanks, but no thanks," on that bridge to nowhere.

(APPLAUSE)

If our state wanted a bridge, I said we'd build it ourselves.

But in fact, she actually did the opposite. During her 2006 gubernatorial campaign, here's how she answered a question about the bridge when addressing an audience of Alaskans:

5. Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?

Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now--while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.

She went on to seek other projects not out of a desire for self-reliance and avoiding wasteful federal spending, but because she couldn't get enough federal funding:

"Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it's clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island," Governor Palin added. "Much of the public's attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened."

See the full story and references at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan's blog reposts this photo that shows Palin's support for the "bridge to nowhere."

UPDATE (September 14, 2008): Some Alaskans are not happy with Palin's claiming that she doesn't support what she told them she supported.

Left-wing conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theorists like to make arguments of the form "A is linked to B, B is linked to C, therefore A and C are in cahoots," where the links between each entity may be extremely tenuous.

P.Z. Myers at Pharyngula, following dogemperor at the DailyKos, maintains that "Sarah Palin's home church is dominionist, with connections to Joel's Army," for which the evidence dogemperor provides is the following:

A look at the home website of Palin's church tends to be revealing. Among other things, a particular Assemblies buzzword associated frequently with Hillsong A/G and New Zealand Assemblies churches shows up ("Destiny", here, is a buzzword for "Joel's Army", and is being preferred even as the phrase "Joel's Army" is getting enough negative spin that even the Assemblies is now having to do some rather massive spin control); cell churches are promoted (of the same sort that are linked to short-term and longterm psychological damage and are among the most coercive tactics ever documented in spiritually abusive groups). The church, like a number of other large Assemblies churches, is the center of a dominionist broadcast TV center whose programming is carried across multiple channels in Alaska.

In a trend that has been recently documented by no less than Southern Poverty Law Center (in its recent report on the Joel's Army movement), the church operates a Seven Project-esque targeted recruitment campaign aiming at teens (this is common across the Assemblies and across "Joel's Army" groups in general; fully a third of the documented national-level front groups operated by the Assemblies target teens).

And...believe you me, Palin's church is definitely "Joel's Army".

But hold on a minute here--the article on "Joel's Army" that Myers initially points readers to is a reasonable article at Alternet that points out that "Joel's Army" is a minority of Pentecostals that has been explicitly rejected by the Assemblies of God:

Not every five-fold ministry is connected to the Joel's Army movement, but the movement has spurred an interest in modern-day apostles and prophets that's troubling to the Assemblies of God, the world's largest Pentecostal church, which has officially disavowed the Joel's Army movement.

In a 2001 position paper, Assemblies of God leaders wrote that they do not recognize modern-day apostles or prophets and worried that "such leaders prefer more authoritarian structures where their own word or decrees are unchallenged." They are right to worry. Joel's Army followers believe that once democratic institutions are overthrown, their hierarchy of apostles and prophets will rule over the earth, with one church per city.

Yet dogemperor's evidence of a link to Joel's Army is:

1. The Juneau Christian Center website uses the word "Destiny." They have a link on the front page labeled "Building for Destiny," which links to a web page that says:

Destiny has begun! The new youth center for children through high school youth is taking shape.

The purpose of The Hub is reach out to youth and parents in Juneau, giving kids a positive place: to grow in safety, build strong relationships, be encouraged to learn in surroundings that match their interests, acquire confidence and prepare for fantastic futures...

The technology in these 21st century centers will encourage kids to enjoy learning in academics, sports, music, art, finances, computers, health, and life skills. From IPOD/study stations and video game terminals to a pool tables and plasma screen TV's there is something of interest for everyone. Oh yes, The Hub also provides a hip cafe serve smoothies, drinks and light food to encourage fellowship.

Sounds pretty scary, doesn't it?

2. The church is "the center of a dominionist broadcast TV center whose programming is carried across multiple channels in Alaska." This links to a page on the Juneau Christian Center website which says:

Pastor's [sic] Mike and Deenie Rose have been the senior Pastors of Juneau Christian Center since 1987. The theme of their ministry is to win the lost and make disciples. Pastor Rose's preaching inspires people to live the abundant life by receiving and using their God given authority, gifts and talents to advance God's Kingdom. Pastor Rose has daily television and radio programs which are broadcast throughout the state of Alaska, and throughout much of the lower 48.

All this says is that he preaches on TV and doesn't know how to use apostrophes. It doesn't say anything at all to support a claim that he's teaching dominionist theology or has any connection to "Joel's Army."

3. The church "operates a Seven Project-esque targeted recruitment campaign aiming at teens (this is common across the Assemblies and across "Joel's Army" groups in general; fully a third of the documented national-level front groups operated by the Assemblies target teens)."

Dogemperor's parenthetical remark undermines his claim that this supports a link to Joel's Army--if this is something common across the Assemblies of God, which rejects the authority of "Joel's Army," then it stands to reason that "Joel's Army" adopted it from the AOG, rather than the reverse. And targeting teens is common for all churches. None of that says anything about the Juneau Christian Center's theology or suggests a connections to "Joel's Army."

This is very weak and poorly reasoned "guilt by association" reasoning of the sort that justifies all sorts of lunatic claims, including fringe Christian arguments about secular humanists trying to take control of the U.S. government.

If Sarah Palin is an advocate of dominionist theology or Christian reconstructionism, I expect a lot better evidence than this to demonstrate it.

UPDATE: The "Secular Apostate," a retired psychophysicist who converted to Roman Catholicism as an adult, criticizes dogemperor's post as a "truthiness parfait." Note carefully what he says about the very term "dominionism"--it didn't used to be synonymous with or a superset of theocracy, theonomy, or Christian reconstructionism, and it appears to be a term applied as such only by its critics, not by those who actually hold any of those positions.

UPDATE: Commenter "raven" at Pharyngula shows clearly that he's applying the term "dominionist" in a very fast and loose fashion. He wrote:

Pretty much all the fundies are Doms. I'd never even heard of xian Dominionists a year or so ago. The difference between reconstructionists and dominionists is...nothing.

To which I replied:

If you're claiming that all fundamentalists are reconstructionists are dominionists, that is nonsense on a par with saying that all atheists are secular humanists are Marxists.

This was apparently sufficient for him to identify me as a dominionist! He responded with this:

Just stating a fact. There might be one or two who lie about it.

You are one, obviously. The tipoff is the raging hatred of everyone especially those coreligionists who differ in minute details of theology. A liberal Dom is one who might let the Jews live if they keep a low profile and all convert to fundie Death Cultism. The other Doms all hate them as blashemous heretics and apostates, of course.

So who is on your "To Kill" list? You all have them. Gays, Catholics, Episcopalians, Democrats, atheists, scientists, MDs, so many people to murder and so little time. The old record is Rushdooney, the founder of modern Dominionism who wanted to kill 297 million of the 300 million US residents alive today. The modern record is the "Nuke 'em all now and let god sort it out" crowd. Sounds like you want to stop that fooling around with armies of religious fanatics with automatic rifles and just go for the quick clean kill.

At this point, P.Z. Myers stepped in and let him know he was drawing some unwarranted inferences.

Raven has supplied a perfect example of the kind of erroneous reasoning that I'm trying to warn against with this post.

UPDATE: After raven learned he was mistaken about my views, rather than recognize that he's gone wrong somewhere and make an effort to learn from his mistake, he simply proclaimed me to be "an idiot" and went off on a rant. It's sad to see that kind of irrationality.

UPDATE: Here are some quotes at the Harper's Magazine blog from sermons of Pastor Mike Rose of Palin's current church and Pastor David Pepper of her previous church. Looks like standard evangelical Christianity, to me--nothing overtly political apart from a statement by Pepper that "I don't care what the ACLU says," though there's some anti-evolution. There's a claim here that Rose has "ties to Hagee's Christians United for Israel," without specifying what those ties are. Pepper, it is stated, "is outspoken on slavery, racism, and the massacres of Native Americans, all of which he terms 'sins' that still cast a long shadow on minority communities." The Harper's blog has links to "many hours of Mike Rose's sermons" and "numerous sermons of David Pepper's," so if there is anything to the dominionist claims, this is the place to look.

UPDATE (September 1, 2008): Although Palin sometimes attends the Juneau Christian Center and considers her home church to be The Church on the Rock in Wassila, both of which are members of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God of America, she does not consider herself to be a Pentecostal, according to Christianity Today, and her profile in the Wall Street Journal identified her as a Lutheran.

Another story, in the Boston Herald, says that Palin's home church is Wasilla Bible Church, headed by Pastor Larry Kroon. This has also been reported by Time magazine. The above claim about The Church on the Rock is a second-hand report by an Associated Press reporter, Eric Gorski, who heard it from Pastor Paul Riley of the Wasilla Assembly of God church, as also reported in the Christianity Today piece. It appears to be false, though no doubt she's visited that and other churches. If Wasilla Bible Church isn't Pentecostal (and it doesn't appear to be), that weakens the allegations of dogemperor even further.

In a Time interview, Palin stated that she attends "A non-denominational Bible church. I was baptized Catholic as a newborn and then my family started going to non-denominational churches throughout our life."

UPDATE (September 7, 2008): Yesterday's New York Times reports on Sarah Palin's church attendance:

One of the musical directors at the church, Adele Morgan, who has known Ms. Palin since the third grade, said the Palins moved to the nondenominational Wasilla Bible Church in 2002, in part because its ministry is less “extreme” than Pentecostal churches like the Assemblies of God, which practice speaking in tongues and miraculous healings.

I don't think the theocracy/reconstructionism/dominionism charge sticks at all. There are lots of good reasons to oppose Palin as vice president, but the idea that she wants to impose theocracy isn't one of them.

UPDATE (September 26, 2008): Palin's certainly a religious kook, as the video of her being blessed with a protection from witchcraft from a Kenyan minister and her subsequent touting of that blessing as a reason she's been selected for public office demonstrates:

The video shows Palin standing before Bishop Thomas Muthee in the pulpit of
the Wasilla Assembly of God church, holding her hands open as he asked Jesus
Christ to keep her safe from "every form of witchcraft."

"Come on, talk to God about this woman. We declare, save her from Satan!"
Muthee said as two attendants placed their hands on Palin's shoulders. "Make
her way my God. Bring finances her way even for the campaign in the name of
Jesus....Use her to turn this nation the other way around!"

On a visit to the church in June 2008, Palin spoke fondly of the Kenyan
pastor and told a group of young missionaries that Muthee's prayers had
helped her to become governor.

UPDATE (January 1, 2009): dogemperor now argues that Pastor Rick Warren is "connected to" Joel's Army--on the grounds that he once spoke at a 1997 conference of David Yonggi Cho, head of the largest Assemblies of God megachurch in South Korea, and that Cho has argued for Pentecostal revival. Uh, so what are the actual connections between Warren and the "Joel's Army" movement, the New Apostolic Reformation, the Five-fold Ministry, or the "latter rain" movement? What's key to all of these is that they are Pentecostal/charismatic movements that argue that there are new prophets and apostles coming who can perform miracles, signs, and wonders. Rick Warren isn't an advocate of speaking in tongues or performing healing miracles, rather, he relies on modern-day marketing techniques, modern music, and technology. This isn't to say he's not about using Christianity for political influence--he obviously is.

A Christian critique of the "Joel's Army" movement which explains it far better than dogemperor is Jewel Grewe's "Joel's Army." Also worth reading is this AlterNet article by Casey Sanchez of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Some people who really are advocates of the "Joel's Army" movement include Todd Bentley, John Crowder, Paul Cain, Mike Bickle, and Rick Joyner.

Bank set up on Christian principles fails

Integrity Bank of Georgia, set up to run on Christian principles, has failed.

Integrity's employees regularly prayed before meetings or in branch lobbies with customers, while the bank gave 10 percent of its net income to charities.

"We felt if we prayed and obeyed God's word and did what He asked, that He would help us be successful," the bank's founder, Steve Skow, told the Journal-Constitution in 2005.

The executives seem to have done OK, though:

CEO Steve Skow earned $1.8 million that year, while senior lender and executive vice president Doug Ballard earned $847,222. A typical community bank CEO, banking consultants said, earn roughly $300,000 per year.

(Via Pharyngula.)

RNC protesters getting similar treatment as DNC protesters

P.Z. Myers reports on the behavior of police in Minneapolis, which looks similar to Denver.

Barack Obama answers the Sciencedebate 2008 questions

Barack Obama has supplied his answers to the fourteen questions from Sciencedebate 2008.

John McCain has said that he will also be supplying answers.

UPDATE (September 17, 2008): John McCain has also supplied his answers to the Sciencedebate 2008 questions. Click here to see their answers side-by-side.

Are the Republicans fans of Battlestar Galactica?

(Image from here. Hat tip to Dave Palmer on the SKEPTIC mailing list.)

Unintended effects of Helicobacter pylori eradication

Since the Helicobacter pylori bacterium was discovered and proven to be the cause of gastric ulcers, it has been disappearing from the developed world as it's treated with antibiotics. But multiple studies are now showing that there can be negative side-effects from its disappearance, including acid reflux, asthma, and obesity.

H. pylori helps regulate stomach acidity, the byproduct of which is sometimes ulcers. But when it is taken out of the picture, stomach acidity can increase and cause esophageal reflux disease, a disease which has increased to match the decrease in ulcers as H. pylori has been eradicated.

The asthma mechanism is less clear, but may be from H. pylori stimulating immune response. The evidence supporting the link is that U.S. children aged 3-13 who have H. pylori are 60% less likely to have asthma than those who do not.

The obesity connection is also not definitively established, but people without H. pylori produce more grehlin (which makes you feel hungry) than those who have it.

(Via "The twists and turns of fate," about the work of Martin Blaser, a microbiologist at New York University School of Medicine, in The Economist, August 23, 2008, pp. 68-69.)