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POPSWhen Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans The 300 apes in Spanish zoos would not be freed, but better conditions would be mandated. Meanwhile, even in democracies, the law accords diminished rights to many humans: children, prisoners, the insane, the senile. Teenagers may not vote, philosophers who slip into dementia may be lashed to their beds, courts can order surgery or force-feeding. Spain’s Catholic bishops attacked the vote as undermining a divine will that placed humans above animals. One said such thinking led to abortion, euthanasia and ethnic cleansing.
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POPSDon't Know Much Biology This attitude has enormous political—and educational—implications. What happens if scientific truth conflicts with a politician's "spiritual truth"? This is not a theoretical problem, but a real one, as we see in debates about stem-cell research, abortion, genetic engineering, and global warming. Ignorance about evolution may be widespread, but it's not nearly as dangerous as dogmatic certainty about the real world based on faith alone.
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POPSIgnorance-only Sex Education It is strange that there's this whole suite of positions that would seem to be unrelated, but almost always seem to be adopted wholesale. If you know someone is against evolution, you can pretty much predict their positions on abortion, stem cells, the death penalty, education, GW Bush, and homosexuality. I wonder what common force ties all those disparate ideas together? - PZ
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POPSAttempted suicide bombing in Iowa According to a Detroit Free Press article on September 14, McMenemy told police he did indeed plan on dying in the explosion he hoped to cause. Via Jill at Feministe
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POPSHomeland Security confiscates Songwriter Hard Drive Take a guess at the nature of the songs. From the article: "And though Walla's laughing when he mentions Guantánamo, he's not joking when he adds that his record — which he's calling Field Manual — is "very political," packed with songs about issues both foreign ("The Score" tackles the war in Iraq) and domestic ("Everyone Needs a Home" deals with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; "Sing Again" is about so-called "morning after" pills and whether they're a form of contraception or abortion). Easy listening, this is not."
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POPS"Why I Am An Abortion Doctor" "I can take a woman, in the biggest trouble she has ever experienced in her life, and by performing a five-minute operation, in comfort and dignity, I can give her back her life"
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POPSSimpsons take on Iraq war Anyone who thinks Hollywood is run by a liberal cabal won't change his mind after watching The Simpsons' annual Halloween special. The episode, which airs Nov. 5, concludes with an Iraq war satire that may rank as the most pointed political statement the show has ever made. In the segment, aliens invade Springfield to prevent mankind from obtaining "weapons of mass disintegration," but their mission, called "Operation Enduring Occupation," turns into a quagmire. "You said we would be greeted as liberators!" accuses one alien. ...but in the past, the show's writers have usually been careful to maintain an ironic distance from the hot-button issues they've tackled, including abortion and evolution. The Halloween segment, in contrast, feels remarkably earnest, right up to its final line: "This sure is a lot like Iraq will be."...Jean makes no apologies for the sobering tone of the segment: "When you read the headlines, it's just so sad for everybody over there."
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POPSThe Right Was Right Now that the elections are over we can all focus on what really matters: calling each other names. This time around we have someone on the Right pretending to be someone on the Left and thence presenting the Democrat's "new manifesto" to Congress. I figured this would be pretty stupid... and it is. But it's so patently absurd that it actual moves into the realm of humour. Afterthought: It's either that or someone really on the Left making fun of people on the Right for their paranoia about what will happen when the "godless, heathen, french-hippie communists" take over. I didn't bother to do enough research. Either way, enjoy. Or don't.
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POPSAmerica's Gods The survey came up with other odd findings: most Americans believe in prophetic dreams, 4 in 10 believe in ancient advanced civilizations like Atlantis, 3/4 of Americans think their relatives will go to heaven, and only 2.2% identified with the term Evangelical even though 1 in 3 attend churches that theologians consider Evangelical. The real bottom line was that asking someone if he is Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish isn't likely to tell you much about what that person actually believes.
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