South Park vs. crazy cult

Last night's new South Park was a hilarious blasting of scientology that's sure to get them sued. This so-called church is well known for releasing hordes of attack lawyers on anyone who publishes anything critical of them. Take a look at the great 1991 Time magazine article exposing scientology called "Cult of Greed".
Before the worldwide web, it was hard to find published material critical of this cult because of the risk of lawsuit. For a high circulation publication like Time magazine to run this article was a huge step in exposing the cult. Yep, they got sued for it. Time Warner got the suit thrown out, but the entire process with appeals took almost ten years.

Now we have websites like Xenu.net, so it's easier. Of course scientology would still like nothing more than to shut them down.

It should be noted that the Cult Awareness Network, an anti-cult organization quoted in the Time article, was driven into bankruptcy by a somehow successful lawsuit brought by the church of scientology. Once the CAN was bankrupt, the church bought out their assets and now runs the organization. Fox... hen house...

Fo shizzle?

I'm really disturbed that when watching Jeopardy last night, I knew every question in the category "MC Trabek in the Hizz 'ouse". All the answers were lines from popular hip hop songs and contestants had to come up with the artist. I don't own any of the music. The only place I hear it is at the club, but the contestants missed two of the questions. I didn't. I thought everyone knew that "I'm gonna knock you out" is by LL Cool J. Sigh.

One Stop Shopping

Someday I'm going to open a one-stop-shopping strip mall for white trash. Stores will include the following:

strip club
adult toys shop
discount cigarettes
liquor store
pawn shop
tattoo and body piercing parlor
check cashing store
bail bondsman
cheap motel (hourly rates!)

People will think it's paradise! I'll make a fortune! Any other store suggestions?

Fans are nuts

I seldom pay much attention to the NFL besides following the Colts progress, but this columnist's report on the mail he's been getting caught my eye. Halfway through the season, he gave every NFL team a grade primarily based on wins and quality of wins (beating good teams). His e-mail box was immediately buried in hate mail from fans who didn't think he'd rated their favorite teams high enough. Question... umm... why? Why do people care what letter grade some columnist gave their football team? Why does this inspire them to send rude, profanity filled letters to him?

On the plus side, at least he knows people are reading. With that in mind, I'd like to officially give all NFL teams (except Indy, of course) an F. That's right, your team sucks. I give them an F. They fail. They're losers who will never amount to anything. hah! And by the way, whoever your favorite rock band is, I hate them. They suck. Stop listening to those no talent hacks and find some real music like Vanilla Ice!

Support for evolution where you least expect it

Yes, even Fox News has a story supporting evolution on their website today. The writer also refers to the recent Kansas school board decision as adding supernatural explanations to their science classes, and correctly points out that in the scientific community the theory of evolution is not controversial.

In other news, Pat Robertson is still batshit crazy. He warned residents of Dover, PA not to call on God if a disaster strikes them because they have rejected God from their city. Dover, of course, is where all eight ID supporting school board members up for reelection lost this week. Sadly about a million people still watch this whacko on television. In 1998, Robertson warned the city of Orlando, Florida that it risked hurricanes, earthquakes and terrorist bombs after it allowed homosexual organizations to put up rainbow flags in support of sexual diversity.

Kansas people lose their minds. Again.

Yesterday I mentioned that all eight school board members up for re-election in Dover, PA, who all supported ID, lost their races. Way to go, Penn! On the other hand, the Kansas Board of Education voted to rewrite state science class standards to be more skeptical of evolution. Every few years, Kansas has been flip-flopping on this one. Now they've gone back to an anti-science stance.

Again, evolution versus intelligent design is NOT a huge controversy in the scientific community. It's likely that less than 1% of scientists in the relevant fields back ID over evolution. Religious fundamentalists have made up a scientific controversy where there is none and don't want scientists and teachers to decide what's taught in science class.

Oh well, way to be ignorant and backwards, Kansas.

CEO pay - corruption beyond belief

The pace of CEO salary increases shows no signs of slowing down. Last year top CEOs made about 20% more than the year before. The average worker made about 3% more. This link is specific to California, but accurately reflects the national trend as well.

Of special note was Yahoo's CEO getting about $145 million in compensation last year, most of it in stock options. He also exercised about $230 million in prior stock options. He still has over $300 million in unexercised stock options. He's only been with the company since 2001 and they've given him well over half a billion dollars in stock options.

This line says it all... Nationally, "the average CEO made 42 times the average worker's pay in 1980. That increased to 85 times in 1990 and is now over 300 times,"

Now how does this keep happening? These assholes sit on each others' boards of directors and vote each other huge pay raises. It's that simple. The CEO's salary is determined by the board of directors. When the board of directors is made up of yes men and chief executives from other companies, guess what? They keep voting for huge pay raises. It's the ultimate good ol' boys club and we're completely powerless to stop it. Theoretically a shareholder revolt could stop excessive pay, but in practice that almost never happens. Who are often among the biggest shareholders? Mutual funds that may not care what the CEO is paid as long as the stock goes up, and... you guessed it.... chief executives.

Election results - some good, some baffling

Cheers to the voters of Dover, Pennsylvania. In a city that has a lawsuit going over Intelligent Design (ID), ALL EIGHT school board members, each of whom supported ID, lost their election. The message from voters was clear. Get the hell out, fundies. You can believe in creationism if you want. That's fine, but it has no place in a science classroom.

In baffling results though, Ohio and California both had initiatives on the ballot to put district drawing in the hands of independent boards instead of the politicians running for election in those districts. In other words, they were going to trash gerrymandering, the corrupt practice that keeps incumbents in power. Gerrymandering is why at the national level we have a 98% incumbency rate in Congress despite the fact that their approval ratings are almost always low. Yet when two states try to get rid of gerrymandering, at least at the state level, the voters actually said NO. Seriously, what the hell? I'm completely baffled. I expect politicians to cling to their power through this corrupt crap, but I never expected the voters to be in favor of it. In Ohio the initiative was voted down by a whopping 70% to 30%. Is that state completely filled with morons? In California it was a bit closer, but still losing 56% to 44%. Sigh.

Justify your existence

I was watching the last part of Nightline tonight and heard them reference the Seattle dialysis scandal from the 1960s. Ted Koppel described it as a time when there far more patients in need of dialysis than there were machines to provide it, so people had to justify why they should get it instead of someone else. Then some kind of committee decided who lived and who died. What? I'd never heard of this before. It sounds absolutely horrid.

I can't find much about it online, but there's a short article about it here. Kidney dialysis was a new technology thanks to the invention of a new kind of shunt. There were only enough machines for about 1 in 4 to get it. A lay committee decided who got dialysis and who didn't. The citizens - a lawyer, minister, housewife, government official, labor leader, and surgeon - were a “life or death committee with no moral or ethical guidelines save their own individual consciences.” The Seattle Artificial Kidney Center selection committee made its decisions about who would be treated based on “social worth criteria,” giving preference to heads of households and those who contributed to the community as church members or scout leaders.

The scandal broke when a story about the Seattle committee was published in the Nov 9, 1962 issue of Life magazine.