We Should Live - Ben Bateman

Penn & Teller demolish commonly believed nonsense about recycling in this episode of their TV show Bulls**t!

They demonstrate that recycling is basically a scam, with the exception of aluminum cans. All other recycling is more expensive, uses up more energy, and produces more pollution than the alternative. And we aren’t running out of landfill space.

They also play with some of the psychological aspects of recycling: People find comfort in believing that they’re saving the Earth by sorting their trash. and some of the show’s recycling defenders actually tout that comfort as an argument in its favor. Penn & Teller also demonstrate rather vividly that people will tolerate ridiculous burdens without question, as long as they believe that it supports the cause of environmentalism.

I only wish that I had taken the show one step further and explored the angle of environmentalism as a religion. I believe that everyone has a religion. The homo sapiens brain demands it. And people who believe that they don’t have a religion simply call their religion something else, such as a commitment to the environment. But Penn & Teller are themselves hostile to religion generally—they see it as a haven for scam artists—so they don’t quite touch it.

The trouble with seeing yourself as being above religion is that you don’t have a vocabulary or conceptual framework to deal with it when you see it. On a grand scale, that’s one of the essential problems that we have in dealing with Islamofascism. And on a small scale, that’s the problem that Penn & Teller have with this show. In talking with recycling supporters, they’re observing religion in action, and listening to people describe their religious beliefs. But Penn & Teller won’t use the word ‘religion’, and that refusal deprives them of the rich vocabulary and conceptual structure that the English language offers.

And that self-inflicted deprivation is ironic, considering that the Penn & Teller shtick is that they’re smarter than everyone else. If they really want to understand the world around them, then they should open their minds a bit to the idea of religion. You don’t have to believe the tenets of any particular religion to believe that religion is vitally important in understanding the world. You could even say their implicit belief that religion is unimportant in understanding the world is itself a religious belief, better understood as the belief that their religion isn’t really a religion because it’s simply truth, and everyone else is deluded, stupid, or insane. But then, most zealots believe that.

(Via Michael Williams)

In the Duke rape case, it turns out that District Attorney Mike Nifong asked the head of a DNA lab to suppress evidence that would have helped the defenses of the boys accused of rape.  This shouldn’t really come as a surprise.  Nifong’s handling of the case stank from the beginning.  He should be removed from office, disbarred, and prosecuted.

Indonesia is rarely on the minds of most Americans, but it’s the world’s fourth most populous nation with 242 million people, only slightly fewer than the United States. And 87% of those people are Muslim, meaning that Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population. But the Indonesian government is secular. It’s exactly the sort of moderate Muslim government that we would love to hold up as a model.

Aceh province occupies the northwest end of the island of Sumatra. It is Indonesia’s most fanatically Muslim province. It is so Muslim, in fact, that a separatist movement has been fighting for its independence on the grounds that the Indonesian government isn’t Muslim enough. So the Indonesian government granted Aceh province authority to impose Sharia, or Muslim law. Consider some headlines, and please read my comments with heavy sarcasm:

August 20, 2001. Words ring hollow for Aceh and Papua.

A human rights group has expressed skepticism at the presidential apology offered to the people of the country’s two restive provinces, Aceh and West Papua.

In her state-of-the-nation address on Thursday, President Megawati Sukarnoputri offered an apology to the Acehnese and the Papuans, saying they had become victims of oppressive policies in the past.

Sidney Jones, the executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch Asia, said there was nothing special in Megawati’s remarks.

“Megawati is the third president offering the apology,” Jones said.

. . .

In the 1980s, former president Suharto launched brutal military operations in Aceh and West Papua — Indonesia’s most western and eastern provinces — to crush the insurgency groups pursuing seccession from the central government.

Although Suharto’s successors have pledged to stop the brutality, military oppression continues.

On Monday, Human Rights Watch released a report on human rights conditions in Aceh.

Titled “The War in Aceh”, the report blamed both Indonesian security forces and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) for the human rights violations.

You see how modern a country Indonesia is? Its government has already learned the art of groveling before unappeasable grievance-mongers. (more…)

Chris Rock offers a Public Service Message for the African-American community: How Not to Get Your Ass Kicked by the Police.

Via The Pirate’s Blog